Anything
by Saint Sentiment
Summary: A woman endures unspeakable torment at the hands of the Joker in order to save the life of her two year old child. Nolanverse.
1. Vicious Traditions

Summary: As a fulfillment of his promise if Batman did not reveal his identity and turn himself into the authorities, the Joker manages to break out of Arkham Asylum and wreak havoc on the residents of Gotham once again.

Author's Notes:

The points of view will vary depending on the people involved in the situations at hand. It will be told in 3rd person omniscient, but more subjective than anything.

Paragraphs in italics are flashbacks.

* * *

Chapter One: Vicious Traditions

The edges of his lips never needed to be licked. He just liked running his tongue along the healed length of jagged flesh every once in a while. He liked the feel of it. Sometimes, depending upon his mood, he would run a finger up the length of his Glasgow smile, pondering the wisdom of deepening it someday.

But the urge to always left him when the thought of how he acquired his gruesome smile in the first place came about. He could always play out different scenarios; they always seemed to fit the puzzle. However, which one of them was _true_ was the real problem there.

In a relentless attempt to answer the question himself, he took to telling each of those many different stories to various people. He always told the version that seemed to be more truthful to him at the time. Of course they believed. They always believed. But after he was done telling the story, his faith in it seemed to lose it's meaning. So yet again he was stuck with the same question.

It was the repression. That was definitely what it was. He couldn't come to a certain conclusion about anything in his past life because of it. He forced himself to forget. Whether it was because the past was too horrible to call to mind or he just wanted to let it go for the sake of this new life, he could not decide. His former mind knew, though.

Sometimes a glimmer of an involuntary image would come at the times he least expected it. They were images of things that he could not string together to make even a probable memory from. They were always unrelated to each other.

He remembered one time, whilst robbing a mob owned bank, a broken toaster popped up in his head. Another time, he was in Gotham General Hospital, perfectly disguised as a nurse as he peered blankly at some sap's medical records. He saw a bent spoon, caked with a cereal of some kind, laying against a small heap of scorched flowers. It could have been related to some weird game he played as a child; that is, if he ever was a child. There was no evidence on the planet to support that.

As always, he never knew. Those random images never bothered him, though it would be nice to know what they meant. Not because he needed to know, but for the sake of knowing. It was the same with the purpose of his new life as an agent of chaos.

Mass suffering was not needed to make this world go round, but, as always, it turned a boring day into a very interesting one. One could even say fun when his favorite person showed up to save a city of worthless people.

And so his mind wandered from place to place in this manner, from pondering irrelevant things to crucial ones.

The thug at his side glimpsed once at his boss' expression. He quickly averted his eyes to the window seat, calling to mind a rather vicious memory. He didn't like to be stared at. Atleast, not ceaselessly by just one person. He liked a large audience. Maybe if they all stared at him like that man did, one of their henchmen would still be alive.

_Instead, they only watched helplessly at the murderous spectacle as the Joker clearly explained, for everyone to hear, that he did not like the man's glare because it reminded him of his father._

_And he hated his father. _

_The Joker made that apparent as he managed to get the man to back up into a corner where a shadowy implement of torture awaited him. Those dark eyes, accentuated so evilly by the black make up surrounding them, forced the man to cringe in helpless intimidation. _

"_What are you doin, boss?" the man inquired with a shaky voice as he tripped over his own useless feet, causing him to land on something that forced a blood curdling scream from his throat._

_The Joker smiled. He reached up and pulled down on a string coming from the ceiling, causing a light bulb to flicker and sway to and fro from it's original place. The introduction of light allowed the rest of his goons to see what he had fallen on. It was the chair of spikes._

"_Now, uh, this little do hickey is called 'the chair of spikes'. People used this back in the medieval times to get a confession out of a suspected witch or heretic. It's not very comfortable, is it?" he asked the man. They were all fooled into thinking that it was a rhetorical question. It wasn't._

_The man was trapped in the chair; the impact of the fall had driven the spikes so far into his flesh that, should he be removed, he would die of excessive blood loss within a few minutes. _

_The Joker's smile was relentless. But in the view of the men who were within close range of him, they could see that his real lips contorted into a frown upon hearing no reply from the whimpering man. _

"_Answer me!!"_

"_Y-yes!" The man spluttered, crying out in agony. _

_The Joker then grabbed a big mallet from a dusty shelf of aged torture devices. Grasping it firmly in his hands, he released a cackle and brought the mallet down on the man's head._

It was difficult to free himself of the enthralling memories of what the Joker had done to all the previous henchmen who had, unfortunately, caught his attention in a way he didn't appreciate. He couldn't ignore the feeling that he was bound to end up like them. His employer was a ticking time bomb.

Beneath the clown mask he wore, he was perspiring excessively and had a conscience tortured by worry and fear for his own life. With this new found anxiety and fear, he found himself thinking of all the horrible things that the Joker proved he was capable of, and all the atrocities yet to come to mind for him to execute.

This man seemed completely detached from anything that made him human. Empathy, compassion, mercy...the list went on and on. Biologically speaking, he was a man. In all other senses, he was a monster bent on issuing the advent of Armageddon.

To top it all off, he was sitting just a few inches from him a car headed to...

Wait. Where were they going?

The question had begun it's torment on his mind until, fortunately, the man driving spoke up.

"Boss, where we headed?" He asked casually. The man in the back seat compressed a gasp. He really didn't know the true nature of the man he was talking to, did he?

"We...are, uh, going to...Little Ones." The Joker replied, his brows slightly lifting. A faint annoyance stung him the moment his diverse thoughts were interrupted. No matter; he would kill him later.

"On Forty Second Street?" The driver mumbled to himself, breathing a small sigh and taking a turn down another street. "That's pretty close." He said, though more to himself than the Joker. "Thought we were headed to the bank."

"The mob can wait. I want something different." He smiled, giving birth to creases on his face. He slouched back on his seat and peered out the window, almost in the likeness of an excited child.

The man at his side gulped, trying to disregard the desire to wipe his perspiring forehead. But fear kept him still. Fear kept him still for the rest of the trip.

Finally, those dreaded words had been uttered.

"We're here." The Joker said with a chuckle, adjusting his purple jacket and preparing a big smile for his unsuspecting victims.

All eight men stepped out of the car, taking out their guns and loading them; others adjusted their masks and opened their duffle bags, pulling out guns and the like.

The buff, but plump man who had driven the car stopped dead in his tracks while the rest of the group continued walking up the causeway.

This couldn't be where they were going. There has to be a mistake.

"Uhh...Boss?"

The Joker grasped the handle and licked his lips, narrowing his eyes. _"What?"_ He said hoarsely.

"This is a Day Care center." The man said with mild confusion in his tone.

"I'm glad to see you can read, you lug!" said the Joker, unleashing his trademark laugh.

* * *

_Three hours and twenty six minutes earlier..._

The sight of the dawn proved to be an eyesore, as it always was.

As she peered at her scars, she remembered how she could not fathom the reality of her life anymore. Though those scars were from so long ago, she still could recall very vividly to mind how she had received them.

He had came home in a drunken stupor.

He was angry. Of course he would be: she had not removed the tables and vases prior to his advent. In his clumsy state, he would trip over them all, causing a multitude of sounds to erupt by the front door. That's how she knew he had finally come home.

Those fists. She knew the sight of them so well. She knew just when his fingers would withdraw into themselves, when the veins would become engorged with the fury in his blood.

She knew it all too well.

The vermilion luminescence that seeped into her room lit up her skin, causing hundreds of those jagged lines across the underside of her arm to take on a light pink hue. She must have stared at the wounds for an hour, not really thinking of anything at the moment.

"Mommy?" A small, fragile voice broke the suffocating silence of this lonely bedroom.

The child was just shy of three years old. His hair was thick for such a young age, in her opinion; the recently cut, brown hair fell just short of his bright blue eyes. It made him look like he was hiding something. She loved that his head was bowl shaped; it only made it easier to bestow kisses upon his head. He would always give her that annoyed whine, and she'd stop and smile at him.

She almost felt like smiling when that cute little whine popped up in her mind. That too, she knew well. But her listlessness kept her from doing so.

Those blue eyes questioned her, as they always did. But she could never give a sufficient response.

She couldn't say he was lost. She couldn't say he was at work. And she couldn't tell him the truth, either.

It broke her heart, knowing a child so young was already acquainted with the ways of the world.

"Mommy..?" The boy tilted his head slightly, expecting either the usual lie or the unusual silence.

The world and every ounce of pain it had bestowed upon her suddenly collided like a powerful wave into her consciousness. Now she was aware that her son was addressing her.

"Why are you up?" She said, her voice lethargic. She wasn't so sensible to her surroundings in the morning, no matter how long she had lain awake in that bed, pondering everything that had been destroyed to everything that was yet to be.

Wordlessly, he slipped a pink, folded piece of paper out of his pocket, sauntering up to her in the clumsy trademark of a young child. He placed the paper in her hand for her to unfold. She read:

_Parent Participation Day!_

_All parents wishing to attend, please be at Gotham's Little Ones Daycare Center & Nursery School at 8:30 am, for food, story telling, and much more fun!_

"Why didn't you give this to me earlier? I don't understand why you wait until..." her low voice trailed off when a unsettling memory came to mind.

_Those eyes. So black. Like his soul. And ceaselessly he berated her with them. Nothing was enough. _

_Every little detail of his face pounded itself into her mind, leaving a permanent mark on her. He struck her down again. _

_A smile formed on his lips. One of those sinister smiles. His lips tore away from each other so maliciously to reveal white teeth gnashing against each other in anticipation. _

_Gnashing..._

_For..._

"Mommy?" His little fingers poked at her side. The unwelcome jolt of a tickle ran up her skin, startling her from her reverie.

"Yes?"

"Okay?" His expression flowed in worry, accentuated more deeply by his small frown.

"Yes."

The boy then began humming the tune to the dark lullaby she had sung to him many times before. Slowly brought to life by the melody he brought to her mind, she began to hum softly, which turned to mumbled singing once the tune reversed itself back to the beginning. He didn't know the words, he only knew the solemn rhythm. Though the memories the song elicited were so unbearable, she decided to bless his little attempts at getting her to sing.

"_Come to me...we never be apart...the soul you seek is me...no more pain...no memories remain...now you can play...with me..."_

* * *

It seemed only her arms, so tightly clutched to the steering wheel, were not lifeless and dumb. Her mind and being were entirely in another world. She felt as if she had left reality long ago, and the city she drove within was only another figment of her desperate consciousness to flee from an inner terror that, doubtlessly, she would never escape from.

As her son sat in the back seat, crashing two colorful dinosaurs together as if they were involved in an epic brawl, he was secretly thinking about his mother's state of mind. His eyes would glimpse at her every now and again as she stared blankly into the street before her. She seemed to know what she doing so well that it no longer required any thought.

Dad liked to hit her. He liked to hit her a lot. But he didn't understand why. If it made his Mommy so sad, why did Dad continue to treat her like that? Was she really doing something wrong?

Mom wouldn't let him do anything. He was always too young. But his underdeveloped mind always told him that he could be a big boy if he really tried, like the choo choo train that could. If a train could do it, why couldn't he?

He ceased the fight between his toys as he came to the unsettling answer.

That's right. He was too small.

"Momma?"

She failed to dignify his calling with a response of any kind, so the boy just assumed that she heard. She just didn't do anything because if she took her eyes off of the road, they would crash. And then he would get into trouble. At least, that's what she always told him when he scolded her for ignoring him.

"I'm dirsty." He pouted, setting his dinosaurs down on his lap.

"The paper said they would have food there, Adrian. Mommy'll get you something to drink when we get there, okay?"

He didn't understand why she couldn't just make a Capri Sun magically appear in her hands like she always did at the dinner table, but he reasoned that a drink would be waiting for him when they got there, like Mommy said. She always told the truth.

The anticipation was driving him more insane than he already was, but he liked the feeling of his burning consciousness ebbing away at his senses. Something—he wasn't sure what that something was—simply _took_ him in such a way that he knew it would not relent until it had been satisfied. Not that he minded at all; in his inactive days, he would patiently wait for it to claim him again.

He immersed himself in this excitement as he sauntered up to the front entrance of the Day Care center, with wild, chaotic thoughts passing through his mind in the course of mere seconds. Though the thoughts were fleeting, he saw them as if they had actually ran their achingly slow course in reality, and he had experienced them all.

A smile—and lord knows he can't help a smile—spread wide across his face, deepening the self-infliced crevices on his marred cheeks.

He grasped the handle, about to pull it, but the voice of one of his goons interrupted the flow of swift flow of action. He was not one to ignore—his father ignored him when he was a child, or atleast, he thought he did—and he wouldn't stoop down to doing something that his _father_ would do.

"_What?"_ He answered coarsely, so much that he actually surprised himself. Is that how he always sounded when someone interrupted his trail of thought?

"This is a daycare center." The man said, slightly perturbed at the idea of what the Joker had in mind for a place as innocent as this. Now, he was a pretty ruthless man—everyone who knew him told him so—but were they actually going to kill _children_? And for stacks of mob money that might not even be there?

In the point of view of the Joker, this world would be far more tolerable without people like him running around—asking all their dumb questions and such. But he reassured himself with the notion he had entertained in the car: none of them were going to get out alive after this anyway. He didn't need a group of low lifes trailing him around, no siree.

But he might as well congratulate him for his literacy before he died, eh?

"I'm glad to see you can _read_, you lug!" The Joker cackled, pushing open the door and slipping out his handy dandy gun from his suit pocket simultaneously.

The woman at the front desk was instantly terrified. Her elderly face contorted in terror and realization at the criminal mastermind that stood before her. She had seen him plenty of times on the television. A truly horrific sight, indeed: the stringy, greenish- black hair that draped his shoulders and strewn itself about his face, the blood red lips that shared the appearance of two, crimson worms curling upward, and the blanch white face that resembled the demented clown he was. To top it all off, his eyes were black. So. Very. Black.

"Well,_ hello_, Ma'am." His eyes widened in mock interest as he needlessly licked the corners of his mouth, tasting the red makeup. "What's the matter? Whya so _scar-ed_? Don't you like clowns?"

The woman let out a gasp. Unfortunately, her last move was not an intelligent one. She reached for the phone, intent on calling 911. He let out a laugh, and lifted his gun to the woman's horrified face.

The explosion of blood and brain matter splattered everything that lay behind her: the desk, the telephone, the window, the plants. Not a thing left untouched.

"Tried to call the coppers, but I made you water the plants instead." He chuckled, opening the door to the back counter and analyzing the mess he had made with apparent approval.

The woman died with her eyes closed. He would rather have them open and wide for him to see. One of his little quirks were always wanting to see the light leave and the irises dilate.

He didn't particularly believe that humans had a soul—he was in no way religious—but he did believe that something left the body. Whatever enabled the human body to exist—a relentless electrical spark or some unknown chemical in the blood, among his theories—dissapated instantly in death.

But she died with her eyes closed. That only meant that he had to see the light leave from someone else's eyes.

The Joker kept this thought in mind as he roved about the room, cutting all of the phone lines should any survivor try to call the cops while he was still in there. Arkham wasn't part of his agenda today.

Then again, he didn't want to leave any of the rooms without confirming that everyone who were present in it were either already dead...or atleast going to die without freedom of movement.

But he supposed this procedure was a 'just in case' thing. After all, the human body is capable of some pretty awesome things. In some instances, humans were capable of playing possum; the animation and even noticeable breathing can be suspended for a time, and when the person retrieved their senses a while later, they could get help.

He wanted to prevent that from happening, too. Good thing he brought his handy dandy remote.

He casually stepped out of the room, swaying his head so a messy clump of hair fell back onto his head and out of his face.

The men stood there in awe, helplessly studying the bloody mess upon the wall. One of them accidentally dropped their duffle bag. The Joker smiled in appreciation. At least they knew now who they were dealing with now.

He narrowed his eyes deviously, clapping his hands together with renewed enthusiasm. "Alrighty, boys...here's what we are, uh, going to _do_ today."

* * *

" 'Little pig, little pig, let me in!' the wolf roared, banging on the door of the straw house. 'Not by the hairs of my chinny chin chin,' said the pig. The wolf was mad now. So he said real loud--"

"_Let me in you fucking bitch! I'm not fucking playing with you! I swear I'm gonna kill you!" He screamed with vehemence, demanding entry with words and brute strength. He banged on the door relentlessly and kicked it with his boots. _

_She wouldn't let him in. Not if he was screaming and yelling bloody murder like that. He had also threatened the child's life also, so now he definitely was going to be outside all night. _

"_Mommy, I'm scared. He's so mad." Adrian sobbed, clutching her fingers for consolation as they sat on the floor of his bedroom, awaiting either the sound of the door being torn apart or the beckoning of the police to drop any weapon he was sure to possess. _

_A few moments later, the door broke. "Honey, I'm home!" He laughed maniacally._

"Miss? Miss?" A elderly woman lightly tapped her shoulder, smiling sweetly as she peered from behind the small story book.

The woman was thrown into cold reality in an instant. Her cheeks began to flame, and she looked around the room to imbibe her surroundings. She sat with her child on the floor of the room, where an old woman was situated before them with a book in her hand, having been interrupted from her story telling by something she did.

"Are you alright?" The elderly woman asked with concern in her soft tone.

The woman slipped a few, curly black strands behind her ear and cleared her throat. "Um, yes. I'm quite alright. Continue."

A few of the adults issued her jeering glances, others issued glares. They all seemed like a big class full of children with the way they were staring. Were they just so engorged with the story of the three little pigs that she deserved those looks?

The woman took in a breath full of air, now knowing that the dialogue had driven her into a memoir about an episode with her husband. That time, she barely made it out alive. Adrian had to convince him to cease the grip he so firmly held around her neck by crying out for her life. He took pity on his wife just as she was about to die and threw her to the ground.

"Pay attention!" said an angry, short haired, blond girl. Her blue eyes entranced the woman for a moment. Adrian had those same eyes. He looked exactly the same when he was angry, too. How cute..

The woman smiled weakly, slightly amused at the girl's insolence. The mother of the blond girl shushed her and apologized for her daughter's behavior. The woman gave a listless nod and turned back to her son. "I hope I didn't embarrass you."

Adrian only smiled in response. She assumed he did not understand what she said, only acknowledged it.

The elderly woman licked her dry lips and then began to read the rest of the tale with as gentle a voice as she had begun with. "Then I'll huff and puff and--"

"Little piggies, little piggies! Please let me in!" broke a unsettling, mocking voice on the other end of the door. "You wouldn't want me to blow your houses down, would you?" The Joker knocked hard on the glass panel, releasing his trademark cackle.

Upon recognizing the notorious man who awaited entry, a few parents cried out in shock and terror. Among their cries were: "It's him! It's the Joker! Oh my god!"

Seeing that he was not going to gain entry into the room by asking 'nicely', he decided to use force. For him, it made the experience more enjoyable.

Suddenly, the knob disassembled itself and fell onto the ground, resulting in a loud clank. The Joker wore a huge grin for his new targets as he strode merrily into the room, bearing an axe in his hand, which he used to disengage the knob.

The parents and children scattered, retreating to various corners of the room. The old woman dove under a nearby table, commencing her pathetic sobbing. Adrian and his mother did not react so apprehensively to his entrance. She simply took her child in her arms and backed away slowly, wearing a look of mild surprise.

He pulled out his remote and displayed it to the quivering crowd.

"Anybody know what this is?"

As expected, everyone was too paralyzed with cowardice and dismay to answer.

"Well, allow me to, uh, educate you _all_..." he said, dragging the sound of the last word as he pressed the button. A green light lit up, causing a few people to whimper, dreadfully waiting for a sudden explosion.

"This...is simply a remote. But you don't turn on the TV with it," he bared his yellow teeth as his smile grew wider. "You obliterate things. And _that_...is that is exactly what I'm gonna do if you don't, uh, _participate._"

"My henchman are guarding every single room on the opposite side of the building. When I press this button—" he displayed it for all to see— "What will happen is that another remote will respond and detonate on the other side, _obliterating_ the nursery school and all within. But this will only happen if anyone tries to _cross_ me."

"Now, what I want you to do is segregate yourselves into two groups: parents and children. On each corner of the room." The hand that held the remote swayed as he pointed to where he wanted the two separate groups to be. The parents had the right side, the children had the left.

One person got up, which gave the next person the strength to stand, and then the rest of the crowd got up as a whole, several fathers and mothers ordering their children to quietly walk to the other side of the room and stay together. In the course of a minute, the two parties situated themselves on opposite ends of the room. They awaited his next command.

The Joker poked at the side of his mouth with the reddened tip of his tongue. "Kids leave. Parents stay."

A mother cried out the name of her child and withdrew herself into her husband's arms for consolement. And slowly, the children courageously stood and left the room. He watched them all as they left, his black eyes darting from child to child, until his gaze fell upon one he liked. Instantly, he slipped out a pink piece of paper from his pocket and said, "Ah, ah, ah..._Adrian_...you stay with me."

Adrian froze in place while the rest of the children scurried out. His eyes steadily trailed up the body of his new captor, only to stop at those disheveled, red lips.

"Momma..." he inaudibly wept, his lip quivering at the sight of this scary man who, doubtlessly, was going to hurt him.

"It says here on this, uh, little pink piece of paper that your _birthday_...is about a week from now," he began, bending down his level and cupping his little chin in his palm. "Isn't that right?"

For the briefest second, his eyes darted to the wide, tear filled, frantic ones of his mother, who quickly nodded to him upon realizing that Adrian would probably be harmed if he did not answer. Wordlessly, Adrian nodded.

"Well, if you want to live to see your birthday, you'll choose a parent out of the crowd to sacrifice their self for you. And if you don't..." he brought the remote to his face, "I will kill you...and all of your friends...and your mommy and daddy."

"I'll do it!" The woman screamed, jumping up out of the squatted crowd. "I'll save yo--"

Before the last of her sentence could be uttered, the Joker pulled out a gun from his pocket and shot her in the shoulder.

Blood splattered over the wall as she fell against it, evoking screams and outcries. She slid to a stop on the ground, clutching her shoulder and panting loudly. Still she averted her gaze to his, begging, pleading.

He was amused that she was not paying much mind to the fact that she was shot—only the threatened life of her son.

"Feel like saving him now?" He inquired, a grin creeping across his face. Boy, she really needed to wake up. Who the hell did she think she was dealing with, anyway? He asked the kid, not the Mom!

Still she averted her gaze to his. That silent begging. Those pleading eyes.

Having come to his decision, he pushed the boy aside and walked up to the crowd, who released more screams and cries as he inched closer. He violently yanked the woman by her thick heap of curly black hair and pulled her out of the group of cowards.

Being stilled by fear, her limbs did not want to cooperate. They only hung like useless appendages. When he let go of her hair, she simply fell into a crumpled heap on the floor. That annoyed him.

"Oh, get _up_!" He snapped, reloading his gun just a few inches above her head. "If you wanna save your son, you'll use your fucking legs!"

She whimpered and immediately sprang to his command, standing up as if she had been electrocuted.

She couldn't bring her gaze to his. It was unbearable. Those eyes were so black.

"_Look at me."_ He said coarsely, grabbing her by her neck and shaking her head to and fro. She did as she was told and met his basilisk glare.

He was faintly surprised that the woman's hands did not spring up to free herself. She willfully submitted to him, even knowing that he could easily tighten his grip and deprive her of oxygen in an instant. His eyes softened somewhat at her apparent desire not provoke him any further.

"So...you still want to save him." He bluntly stated, licking his lips again. "Do you have any idea what's going to happen to you?"

The woman listlessly shook her head, trying to make it seem that she did not want to release herself from the hands clasped around her neck.

That's right. She really didn't know. Her stomach almost heaved at the thought of finding out, but she held it in. She held it in for her son.

"What are you, uh, willing to do?" The Joker questioned softly, loosening his clutch, thus allowing her easier speech.

She swallowed hard and squinted her eyes closed, thinking of her son crying out in terror. _"Momma! Momma!"_

_The trigger was pulled moments after he uttered his last words, the bullet veering straight for his head._

She shuddered involuntarily at the thought. No. She couldn't let that happen. Never.

With a quivering intake of breath, she replied, "Anything."


	2. Secret Game

Chapter Two: Secret Game

Time stood still.

At least it felt that way to everyone in Gotham's Little Ones Daycare Center & Nursery School. Every person's mind was clouded with panic and trepidation. They no longer knew themselves, nor the ones around them. To every hostage, there was only a man with a grotesque clown mask pointing a gun at them, warning that any sudden moves will result in immediate death.

Just as their depraved supervisor had ordered them to, all the goons had separated the children from the parents and ordered them to leave. And so the kids left, and the parents stayed.

He informed his men that the children they removed from the classrooms would be escorted to the opposite side of the building by him, and that they should inform the parents of the exchange. If any uprisings occurred, then the man who was experiencing difficulties controlling his party activated his remote, which sent a message to the Joker. He would then blow up a random classroom on the opposite side of the building. The remote he held was, of course, rigged so that the remote would not destroy the room he was currently in.

In truth, the Joker had deceived everyone in different ways.

What he did not tell them was that he was doing this for the sake of fun and fun alone. He had lied to them and said that this daycare center had connections to the mob and that they kept a few million stacked underneath the Nursery. This was done in the understanding that the police would never search a place like this for mob money. One of the parents or staff members knew where the money was hidden, so they had to use extreme methods to sift the person out.

How did he convince his men of this? Simple. He visited Arkham and forced Carmine Falcone, on pain of receiving his own Glasgow, to write a note to the Joker stating that he had hidden money there and that they could have it all if they released him from the Asylum. This note was sent to him by Jonathan Crane, who was to receive a share.

It was just too easy to win their trust! The Joker usually despised unintelligent people, but he had to admit, they were convenient to have around in certain situations, such as this one. All it took was fooling a pack of idiot thugs into thinking he actually _cared_ about money and freeing Falcone from his current predicament.

To think, a fake note and a phony story threw him into the company of this delicious creature, a tragic goddess just _begging_ for death! He couldn't wait to take her home. It's been so long since he had a playmate. The last time he took prisoners, he had poor little Rachel Dawes and her lover boy, Dent. He didn't get to spend too much time with them, though. A good hour or so of torture wasn't 'part of the plan' that time.

Ever since then, he harbored a growing desire for a new captive. One that he could really twist and tear apart.

And here she was, trapped in the choke hold grip of his hand.

The Joker licked his lips. "So, uh, you're his mommy, I presume?"

She shuddered beneath him, praying for the courage to speak. She loathed the feel of his palm coming in contact with the skin around her neck. It was a hell of a struggle to hold back her rebellious adrenaline. More than anything in the world, she wanted to just melt into nothing and elude a fate inescapable.

Her head tilted downward, then upward. Before she knew it, she had summed up the strength to nod.

That unrelenting smile creeped across his face yet again. She was beginning to notice a similarity in his behavior to that of her husband. Just as her spouse was a slave to the demonic impulse to inflict pain on those who had never wronged him, this man felt the need to saturate his lips constantly, all the while instilling terror in the hearts of the innocent.

There was a evident nervousness in his countenance. It was not the apprehension of normal beings, but a nervousness akin to excitement. He had things in store for her.

He had things in store for her. And he couldn't _wait_.

"Tell you what—I admire your bravery—and your _stupidity_—so I'll make a deal with you, since I'm a man of my _word_." Again, he dragged the ending of the sentence, emphasizing his hostility. "If you can survive long enough to see your son's birthday, I'll let you go. But if you _don't_—" He shook her head slightly—"I will find your son...and torture him in ways _unthinkable_. Got it?"

She nodded weakly. "I promise...I won't fight you...I'll give you anything...just please.." she mumbled, almost inaudibly.

"_Good_." He said, sheer bliss creeping up into these otherworldly eyes. Something that could not be fathomed rose up in her stomach, in the intensity of a demon stirring from slumber in hell.

In an instant, he swapped her to his side. Pulling out a octagon shaped object in his gloved hand, he held it up for the entire sea of terrified gazes to meet it. "If you leave before the timer goes off—_BOOM_!"

The sudden eruption of emotion provoked a few screams and cries from the crowd. They clung to each other as tightly as was possible without being deprived of breathing. All the while, their minds drove them insane with unanswerable questions. Where was their children? What was that thing he was he holding in his hand? Were they going to live through this? Were they ever going to see their loved ones again?

Was this truly the end?

He peered over to his side, where the frightened Adrian stood on the verge of soiling himself, clutching his shoulders in an unconscious attempt at consolation. This man reminded him of Daddy.

And like Daddy, he knew and loved fear when he saw it.

He waved dismissively at the boy. The child took his cue and ran out into the hallway, leaving a faint trail of urine in his frantic, jagged path to the exit.

This amused the Joker, who in turn, averted his deathly gaze to the woman and said, "That's a bad habit right there. I hope he doesn't piss all over the place when I check on him later."

Her heart lurched as a cry caught itself in her dry throat. _Later?_

Before they left in unison, he smacked the octagon onto the door, which caused a slot to unsheathe itself. Red numbers began to decrease immediately.

3: 00, 2: 59, 2: 58, 2: 57...

The Joker walked out with his new toy in close proximity; when he felt that she was lagging behind a bit, he reached over to her messy, black heap of tresses and tugged slightly on them, coaxing her to move forward. She watched diligently as he began swiping out more octagon shaped objects from his purple jacket, pasting them to each individual door he passed. They were held in place by a sticky substance of some kind that dripped like candle wax out from the edges.

Realization struck her heart in one devastating blow. They were not simply objects.

They were bombs.

"Things will be so much fun this week, I can barely contain myself!" He cackled, continuing to issue a bomb to every door.

When they reached the front lobby, the woman was dismayed at the sight of the blood splattered walls behind the front desk. She had known that woman. She was so kind and giving...

And now she was dead.

He opened the door for her, pointing to a rather recent-looking black Jeep Wrangler. She assumed that the car was the property of one of his henchmen who were guarding the Nursery or any classrooms on the other half of the building. With such a disheveled appearance, he certainly had even less taste in his choice of automobiles.

She quickly scurried past him, the thought of escaping completely leaving her train of thought; the click of the .357 magnum revolver told her that he'd taken care to remind her that he was armed.

Her thoughts were more centered on her son, who she had not seen since he fled from the Joker and into the remaining half of the building. She wondered if, somewhere along the line, someone had found him and pulled him into one of the classrooms. Had he been added to the amount of hostages already present? Or if...dare she think it...

He had been shot?

She crawled into the passenger seat, the unsettling feeling turning into sheer panic. The sour taste of bile crawled up her throat, awakening the need to weep. Why was this happening to her? What had she done so wrong that she needed to be judged so? Was this a form of divine punishment?

Moments later, the Joker gleefully slid into the driver's seat, shutting the door next to him and shoving the key into the ignition. The car hummed with renewed life.

Swerving violently around the corner, he headed to the back of the building without so much as putting his seat belt on or advising her to do so. The sudden shift in movement caused her jerk to the side and hit her head against the window. She felt like she had stretched something farther than its intended elasticity.

She grasped her stomach; her breath hitched as she felt something inside rip. But she soon forgot her agitated abdomen as her head lifted.

She could only gape at the sight.

To her utter shock, mass legions of confused and aimless children wandered outside the posterior of the building, screaming and whining for their parents. Upon further inspection, she saw that some were situated in or near the playground; children of diverse appearance and age scattered themselves around the monkey bars, lounged by the slides, or cried softly in the sandbox. Others wandered around in the parking lot, trying the handles to the doors of random cars, looking for shelter.

Among her fleeting thoughts was that the children had chosen the worse possible time to be perplexed and helpless. Why in the world would they not be running for their lives or screaming for help, regardless of the fact that they were not accompanied by their parents? It seemed they only cared about the liberation of their mothers and fathers rather than involving the police.

The Joker unintentionally snapped her out of her thoughts by veering suddenly around the corner, giving them a better view of the parking lot and the playground that lay juxtapose to it.

He casually placed his elbows on the steering wheel, surveying the children from afar as they defenselessly roamed about the premises. Some looked up to the windows for signs of life, others whined about or consoled other grieved children. Some even reassured others that it would be alright, that their daddies were strong and could easily overpower the men that held them prisoner.

The Joker, however, knew far better. He inwardly smiled at their pathetic, but admittedly adorable attempts to find solace in each other.

Behind a car, he could see that messy, chocolate hair that belonged to little Adrian. He cowered at the headlights of his mother's teal Ford Mustang, withdrawing himself into a fetal position and weeping for her. His obscure figure was almost completely consumed by a car parked adjacent to him. You could only catch him if you fixed your eyes on the bottom of the vehicles.

The Joker glimpsed at his hostage. The woman did not seem to notice him there, for still her eyes darted nervously from child to child, desperately seeking out her son.

Seemingly satisfied with the sight presented to him, he sighed in content as he pulled out his handy dandy remote from his suit pocket, positioning it against the top of the steering wheel for her immediate notice. Before she could let out a shaky, breathless gasp, he pressed the button on the top of the remote, resulting in a powerful explosion.

Within a millisecond, the entire daycare center burst into a frenzy of flame. All the children within the nearest proximity were engulfed into it's fiery cloud of imminent death. The force of the explosion blew an acrid gust of wind and debris their way. He quickly rolled up the windows, laughing as the particles tapped against the window and the grey haze suffused their surroundings.

The woman could hear nothing but a relentless ringing in her ears as the violent torrent of wind pushed her back and caused her head to crack the windshield. She fell back into the chair with a thump inaudible to her. As the impact of the blow was causing her to lose consciousness, she slid down the length of the chair, screaming out what she felt was her son's name.

The car seemed to be in motion now, swerving out of the thick cloud of fog and into the clear road. She averted her dwindling gaze to the Joker as he yelled something at the road in front of him, screaming in brutal, maniacal triumph. He looked at her and pursed his lips together like he wanted to kiss her.

The last thing she saw was his horrible face making childish expressions at her expense. He looked so elevated. His eyes were nearly gleaming. The sight of the destruction that he, and he alone caused, served the equivalent of a dark orgasm.

* * *

He pulled up to the threshold of the archaic building, sighing. He hopped out of the Jeep and started toward the side where the woman lay unconscious in a crumpled heap of blood and tears. Opening the door, he used her thick heap of hair as a means of pulling her out of the car. She fell out halfway, to which he quickly broke her fall. He adjusted her to a bridal position as he violently kicked the door shut.

As he strode up to the building, he thought of how light weighted she was. Her lack of heaviness made it easier to accept he was practically carrying a child.

He nudged open the door with his shoulder, grunting as he traveled up the stairs to meet an old, rust caked elevator. While he waited for it to open, he hummed to himself an old tune he had known for a long time. Exactly how long he knew it, he didn't know. He didn't even remember how he had learned it in the first place.

Suddenly, an involuntary imaged flashed in his head. A grey key. Just a grey key.

Alright, he didn't know where _that _came from. Let's see...a broken toaster, a bent spoon caked with old cereal, flower pedals, and now a grey key...

He thought it better to just let it go. Wracking his brain wasn't going to give him an answer anyhow.

The elevator dinged, causing the door to slide open. He stepped inside, sighing in annoyance as his hands began to grow tired.

He wondered how long she would last. Probably not very long, if he wasn't lenient with some of her punishments. That wasn't too much of a problem; he wasn't going to stoop down to being merciful, though. No, merciful would be letting her go or stopping his games at her request, which he _definitely_ wasn't going to do. There was just going to be a slight change in the severity scale. After all, there was only so much a woman could take. But exactly _how much_ she could take, was the real question.

He gave a sinister smile at the thought of finding out.

He finally entered his abode: a immense relief. The lights immediately switched on, causing a low humming sound to rise in the walls. It never really bothered him; it was an indicator that the place was running properly. Still, some bulbs were flickering in one place or another, and he loathed the thought of having to replace them soon.

The place was a wreck. That didn't bother him either. He actually liked a mess. The more disarray, the better, was what he thought. Most who've had the misfortune of passing through here said it looked like a death trap.

Well, that's exactly what he wanted them to think. If he cleaned up, this place wouldn't instill too much fear in his captives now, would it?

Looking over to the curtained-off room on his far left, he just hatched an idea. Speaking of death traps...

That reminded him. She could try to run away if he wasn't prepared for it. Though she _did_ say that she wouldn't...

"_I promise...I won't fight you...I'll give you anything...just please.."_

Well, there was always the possibility that she could be lying. But then again, would she really do that even after he threatened the life of her son?

It really didn't matter, he concluded. This was one of those 'just in case' things.

He laid her on an aged surgery table in the curtain room, debating whether or not to sedate her further. She _was_ unconscious, but would that be enough?

The Joker decided not as he pulled out a drawer in a nearby metal table, taking out a syringe. He plucked the needle into a small gallon of his 'special formula', as he so affectionately referred to it. The needle withdrew, and he smiled to himself.

Upon approaching the sleeping beauty, he used his other arm to squeeze hers so tightly that the vein he was aiming for protruded. He stuck in the syringe the moment the vein arose, pushing down on the hilt until her body had imbibed every last drop.

The following procedure proved to be very fun...

And very bloody.

* * *

"_What did I tell you?" He growled, crunching his fists. The knuckles cracked, startling her from the broken dish on the floor. "Why are you so fucking clumsy?"_

_Her hands trembled violently as she tried to muster up a reply. She tried to utter an apology at the very least, but alas, it would not leave her throat. The raw fear had suspended her vocal chords, leaving him only to grow angrier. _

_He stood up from the table the moment he did not receive a response. "Talk, bitch!" He spat, slamming his fists on the table and denting the wood. The crack from the wood also made her jump. _

"_I'm...sorry..." she whimpered, averting her gaze to the ground. _

_Adrian had just woken up from his nap. His pajamas hung lazily over his small form as he tottered from side to side, trying to alleviate the feeling of his numb legs. He stood before the entranceway to the kitchen, staring at the broken plate. Adrian was surprised. _

_Mommy wasn't bleeding yet?_

_He looked up from the shattered dish and said in his toddler monotone, "Mamma?"_

"_Mamma?"_

"MOMMA!"

Her eyes shot open in an instant. The initial sensation was pain. Intensifying, insufferable, pain. Those arched, red lips were the introductory greeting he issued to her upon finding she recovered her senses.

With a lean, gloved finger, he tossed her head to the side, giving her full view of his jubilant expression. He only gave her a few seconds to collect herself before making his first declaration:

"I heard your son saying that to you a lot." He said, licking the corners of his mouth. "I honestly think that's the only thing he knows how to _say_!" The Joker cried, breaking into a breathless laugh. "Mama! Mama! Mama!"

He shook his hands nervously back and forth, reiterating Adrian's penchant cry. If his goal was to annoy her, he had accomplished it. However, there were more things that were testing her patience aside from the ceaseless berating of her son's limited vocabulary. Her eyes stung with the intensity of a searing fire as the light bulbs above her swayed to and fro, their luminescence comparable to the sun itself.

She was astonished at the fact that she could still see, even if her visual perception only consisted of incomprehensible shapes and colors.

"Where..." The woman breathed, finding even that to be very painful. Her stomach throbbed mercilessly. It felt like it was going to explode...

He stopped his senseless repeatings, tilting his head slightly to the side in curiosity. "Where..._what_?"

"Where..?" She slurred, unable to finish her inquiry while attempting to wiggle her fingers or move her head on her own. Finding that she could not, the thought began to terrify her to no end. She was groggy and insensible to her environment. That was not a good condition to be in when one is under the guardianship of a man such as he.

"You're on a table," he began, edging off to the side a bit, "And...you are..."

He slid a finger down her bare breasts, stopping at her bruised nipple and pressing downward on it. She whimpered in horrid realization and pain.

She was naked.

The Joker licked his lips lustfully, unleashing his fear inducing smile upon her once again. "Oh _my_! Looks like...you're naked."

The woman squinted her eyes closed and tried to lift herself off the table, but a searing pain traveled up from her stomach and hit every chord of her body. She cried out in agony, feeling around her stomach. She found that she had stitches.

_Stitches?_

Unwillingly, her eyes traveled down to that very spot where she felt it was from. Indeed, there were stitches. It seemed as if he had just gotten done closing up a huge gash he had inflicted on her lower body.

Something was inside! Something was inside her!

"What did you do to me?? What did you do??" She screamed, her hands trembling out of control as she sputtered helpless outcries and desperate questions.

"What did you put inside me?!"

He put his hands in his pockets, smacking his lips together as he prepared to explain the devastating situation at hand. "_That...?"_ He asked, feigning ignorance as he averted his eyes to her horrific wound. He instantly became serious. His red smile turned into a sloppy, solemn frown. "That's a bomb, honey. Oh, and _trust_ me...that won't be the last thing I put inside you."

The Joker chuckled, running his hands along the length of the closed gash. "This is what I like to call an 'insurance policy'. I do remember you saying that you wouldn't fight me, but this is a, uh, 'just in case' kinda deal. I tend to do those. Better safe than sorry, eh?"

She only gaped. He really _was_ insane, wasn't he?

The Joker pulled out a remote similar to the one he used to obliterate the daycare center. "Here's the deal, toots. The bomb detonates if you walk out of range or if I press the button. Simply put, it will not go off if you don't try to escape."

_No..._she thought..._There's no way out._

* * *

_Day One, Part 1: Le Grand Tour_

* * *

He grabbed her hair, forcing her to face him. Now their faces were only inches apart. He inhaled and exhaled that foul aura he managed to create after weeks, no, more likely _months_ of not practicing oral hygiene. She recoiled at the sight of his discolored teeth as he spoke in the hostile euphony that was his and his alone:

"Lemme tell ya something. My awe inspiring performances usually have a large audience. But this..." he traced her collarbone lightly with his gloved finger, "_This_ is a terror that no one will know...except you and me. _This_...is a 'secret game'."

A lone tear slipped from the duct of her left eye, so slowly and gracefully it fell off of her cheek and onto her frail, battered chest.

–

The Joker allowed her to depart the room via a old wheel chair: she would not be able to move the lower part of her body for a few hours, he informed. He had sedated and paralyzed her lower half for the purposes of the bomb implant.

He would usually have her drag herself into the main room, just for the sake of seeing her struggle like a crippled dog. However, he really wanted her to see something that simply would not wait.

And so the Joker pulled back the curtain and strolled her into his living quarters. It was truly a sight to behold. Nearly everything he owned embellished his sick infatuation with sadism and death.

Things were carelessly scattered all over the place, making the room seem all the more malevolent. Many of the couches and chairs he owned were covered in spikes and splattered with old and new blood. There were iron maidens placed at every corner of the room, shrouded in darkness. Misplaced tables bore many medieval devices of torture and abuse, such as breast rippers and the pear. To the far left of the room, next to an obscure iron maiden, a Judas Cradle was situated.

Aside from the torture devices, there were two windows spaced far apart on the west wall. The discolored curtains hung limply from the railings above them. This prevented moonlight from breaking into the room; he preferred absolute darkness when he slept.

The only objects that looked slightly normal was a TV and an ominous looking grandfather clock sitting against the wall where one of the windows was located.

The TV was sitting on a table, issuing an annoying static drone.

"That TV is rigged," He smiled triumphantly, "I tend to forget to tell my henchman that when they want to watch something."

She trembled uncontrollably. It seemed even his own entourage was not safe from his murderous ways.

"See the exit sign?" He pointed to the red sign a fair distance from them, glowing bright over a wooden, barricaded door. "That's the point of no return for you if you disobey. Do you know what's, uh,_ behind_ that door?"

Involuntary tears slid down her face. She shook her head briefly.

"Beyond that door..." he began, slowly sauntering her further into his apartment, "Are a bunch of rooms...trap doors...chambers...things like that. But you don't wanna know what's in those places, do you?"

Before she could censor herself, she released a helpless sob from her mouth.

_Please, don't put me in there_, she pleaded inwardly. She was mortified already by the fact that she was impregnated with an explosive only he could control.

"You won't _have_ to know what's in those rooms if you play _nice_," he said, looming over her. His green hair tickled her forehead. Even his wiry strands felt like whip lashes to her.

"Now, _here's_ the ropes. The 'game' starts at midnight, and ends exactly a week later at midnight...the first hour of your son's birthday. If you want to know the time, check up there--" he pointed to the upper corner of each wall, where a red timer slot sat in it's dormant stage, "--There, there, and there."

"We've got plenty of time before we start, so why not kick the day off with a little TV?" He offered, almost cordially.

"T...TV...?" She questioned, her eyes averting to the 'rigged' television only a few feet from her.

"Not that one." He said, once again pulling out a remote and pressing on it. A huge slot in the east wall immediately slid into itself, revealing a 150 inch plasma screen.

A very dreaded image flicked on the screen at once: the daycare center was in flames. The ruins fell off the building like charred, useless appendages, causing huge clouds of smoke to emanate from the impact of collapsing. The firefighters tried the best they could to put out the fire, their hoses aimed at every corner of the building. The fire still continued to lick up the walls and consume everything it touched.

The scene then shifted to injured children being rushed into the paramedics, moaning and weeping for help. Many cried, "Mommy! Daddy! Where is my Mommy? What happened to Daddy?"

The sirens sounded louder than the reporter was talking. Her statements melted into a senseless drone amid the screaming and crying and persistent roar of the fire.

Firefighters rushed into the blaze in search of survivors. Children were seen limping from the scene, a bloody mess and crying out in agony.

It was only within her power to watch in horrid disbelief.

The woman felt her sanity cascading downhill into a void of nothingness. She had been stripped of everything that made her a dignified, calm woman.

"No! You said you'd spare his life! What happened to my son?! Where is he?!" She shrieked, slamming her fists on the handles of the wheelchair. Her knuckles began to bleed as she pounded her fists onto the metal time and time again.

She asked herself the same questions: Why was this happening? Why had this been allowed to happen? And then a new question sparked in her mind: Where was he? Where was this vigilante they held so high, the God of Gotham?

Where the hell was_ Batman_ when all this was happening?

From behind her, the Joker released a blood curdling cackle. "Who knows? I didn't see him anywhere." He lied, relishing the expression of shock and alarm.

Unbeknown to the Joker, he had answered both of her questions.

–

As midnight drew closer and the hours faded away, she thought of the facts. The terrible, _terrible_ facts.

Adrian was likely dead. Hundreds of orphans, dead children and parents. Eternally destroyed innocence. And Gotham's savior did not get there in time.

"Why..." She murmured, her lip quivering as she turned back to face him from the cold confines of her wheel chair. "Why didn't you..."

At first, he replied with a content smile as he slouched back in the disfigured couch, crossing his legs.

She finally mustered up the courage to ask the question in entirety. She had to know, regardless of the consequences. Regardless of the fact that she could be punished for inquiring of the motives of her captor.

The woman abandoned all will to restrain herself from asking the blunt, heartless question. "Why didn't you just kill all the children...?"

To which the Joker replied, "I'm all about the uh, _bigger_ impact. I _was_ originally going to kill them along with the parents, but then I thought—why kill them all instantly with the push of button when I can _traumatize_ them for life with the push of a button?"

That laugh. That horrendous laugh. Like a demented hyena..

Suddenly, the grandfather clock tolled. Tolling...

For...

He peered at her through soulless, black depths of hate. "Looks like it's time..." he started, standing up and slowly stalking toward her. Her eyes trailed up his approaching body.

_This couldn't be. This just couldn't be happening. It just couldn't be._ She gritted her teeth. "No..." she cried, shaking her head. "_No.._"

The Joker shook his head in unison: "Ask not for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for _thee_."

He then swapped a blade out his coat pocket, intent on giving her a new look. This woman honestly needed to smile more.


	3. Quagmire

A/N: I read over and heavily edited the first chapter and corrected any grammatical errors and inconsistencies within the plot. If you want to see what I changed, please re-read the first chapter.

* * *

"_Hear the tolling of the bells—_

_Iron bells!_

_What a world of solemn thought their monody compels!_

_In the silence of the night,_

_How we shiver with affright_

_At the melancholy menace of their tone!_

_For every sound that floats_

_From the rust within their throats_

_Is a groan..._

—_Edgar Allan Poe, "The Bells"_

Chapter Three: Quagmire

The reddish grey sky brought him a sentiment of inadequacy that was beyond his power to ignore. He bowed in his head in furious shame at the shimmering ashes that scurried past his feet. The sound of sirens assailed his ears, keeping this despondency, this sheer degradation firmly in his thoughts.

From a small distance away, a child cried as two solemn men carried her to the stretcher. A little further from that, faint screams could be heard. He understood their terror completely. He had almost cried out dismay himself when he came upon it.

Gotham's Little Ones Daycare Center & Nursery School.

He honestly didn't consider it. He didn't consider the possibility that the Joker could direct his psychopathic wrath on a defenseless group of children. They were _children_. The majority of the occupants were toddlers, most of them not even exceeding the age of five.

Why would he do this? Was this just another one of his "social experiments", like the ferry incident? Why had he taken it upon himself to inflict unspeakable suffering on the lives that had barely begun and the devoted men and women who nurtured them?

He clenched his fists in utter despair, rage racking ever fiber of his being. Where ever the Joker was...he was going to find him. _He was going to find him_. And there, the very moment they crossed paths, the Joker's reign of terror would end permanently.

"_Batman," Gordon wheezed, momentarily resting his palms on his knees to catch his breath, "Dammit, I've been running all day."_

"_He's gone." The dark vigilante confirmed, talking in that gruff monotone that gave the Commissioner an odd comfort, though he felt he was being scolded. "And he left a blood bath in his wake. They're still counting the bodies."_

"_Don't remind me." He sighed, massaging his temples, "Apparently, he's quite experienced in the art of hypnotism. He got one of the guards to give him the key."_

"_Figures," Batman grumbled,"I didn't want to accept it, but I knew he was smart enough to dig his way out of Arkham sooner or later." _

_The Commissioner squinted his eyes closed, trying to banish a sudden revelation that he knew to be true, but determined to keep to himself._

"_Tell me everything." Batman ordered, sauntering through the white hallways of the infamous asylum. Gordon reluctantly willed his weary legs to follow in pursuit._

"_Got the key, offed both of his guards, then the nurse, but the psychiatrist that was assigned to him managed to run off. No one knows where she is."_

"_What's her name?"_

_Gordon kicked his tired, inept memory into gear. "A Dr. Harleen Quinzel. She was hired here about a month ago."_

_Batman scoffed. "How in the world could a psychiatrist with a month of experience be assigned to the Joker?"_

"_She moved here after a two year success streak with schizophrenics in Winchester, England. They needed people like her here, especially after they incarcerated Crane."_

"_I see..." Batman trailed off, having been brought to the cell where possibly the most depraved man in history was once held. _

_The walls of the padded room were stained with blood, embellishing the tale of the Joker's escape wordlessly. One could ascertain what had happened by simply observing the evidence his brutal violence had left behind, even in the absence of corpses. A faint shape of a woman left a bloody imprint on the floor, a dripping syringe within its proximity. A gun, snapped in two by the might of the devious trickster, lay in scattered pieces around the interior. In the middle of the cell, a lone pocket watch dangled its chain like a pendulum from the table where his sessions were carried out._

"_How did he kill them?"_

_Gordon sighed, having hoped that he would come to the conclusion himself. "Hypnotized the guard, got 'em to come in, gave him the key, then he shoved the butt of the gun up his jaw and through his head, and..." he shivered involuntarily, being met with the image of it once again. And to think, he had to take a good, long look at many of the victims. He almost hurled at the thought of having to examine more of them before the day was through._

"_Continue," Batman turned to face him. He could almost sense a morbid interest in the subject of the Joker's methods of killing. But he resumed his testimony without verbal protest._

"_The syringe." He emphasized with a sudden hammering motion of his hand, "Shoved it into the nurse's head. She died before the ambulance came." _

_Next in line was Carmine Falcone's cell, who was one of the victims. When Batman walked in, he was slightly perturbed at the sight of his corpse. It was not viciously mutilated, as others had allegedly been, but he did have two features that the others did not: his Glasgow, and the Joker's calling card protruding from his skull. The masked crusader assumed that Falcone might have been a little harder to deal with than the rest; evidence of a struggle was apparent in the lashings on his arms and abdomen and in the claw marks upon the wall._

_A pen rested on the floor, which piqued Batman's interest._

"_Did Falcone write something before he died?" Batman questioned, narrowing his eyes. "Does he keep a journal?"_

"_It could be a possibility, but there's problem with that theory. No inmates at Arkham are __allowed to have pens and paper, no matter how well behaved they are. Any writing implement and paper of any kind are considered weapons. You'd be surprised how...inventive the people here can be with so-called 'harmless' objects." Gordon commented, casually leaning against a section of the wall untouched by the mobster's blood. _

"_Then the Joker got a hold of a pen and paper and forced Falcone to write something before he fled." He concluded. _

"_I'd say that's kinda...odd of him. The Joker, I mean. Why would he need Falcone for anything?"_

"_I'll find that out when I see him."_

_Batman turned around to leave, but Gordon interposed, taking his hand out of his pocket and signaling him to stop. "Please wait. I know your headed to Crane's cell, but he can't see anyone right now. He's going through a psychotic fit, and they're trying to calm him, but.." He almost didn't want to continue._

"_Get to the point." The caped savior growled, clenching his fists in impatience. _

"_He kept on reiterating 'little ones', 'little ones'...," the Commissioner began, swiping back his troublesome hair, "...That's the name of a Daycare center on 42nd_ _street. We don't know if he's referring to that building, but this is the Joker, so--"_

_Batman grew anxious. "No." He mumbled underneath his breath, startled by a new, dire possibility. The man's patience had already left and, despite Gordon's requests, he sprinted out and ran down the hallway._

"_If you find him, don't rush in with fists flying!" Gordon cried, springing into a half-walk, half-run, "He may have a very effective weapon he can use against you!"_

_This actually impelled Batman to stop in his tracks. He turned around to face the worried profile of the Commissioner. "What?"_

_It was a useless sentence; he had heard what the man said. Exactly what he meant was another matter of concern entirely._

_The man at the other end of the hall drew in a cautious breath. "We...have reason to believe he has taken a hostage." _

* * *

_Day One, part 2: Smile_

* * *

The woman tried her best to distract herself with the crucial importance of her son's safety while the Joker strapped her to the wheel chair. But in her mind, she only saw the empty orbs of absent blue, suffused with everlasting death. An unmoving mouth, with which he used to speak her name, now capable of speech no more. The small, fragile fingers he used to rake through her tendrils now dumb and ever still. His limbs sprawled, rigid and lifeless against the cold pavement of the street. And from the reflection in a nearby puddle, a fire blazed mercilessly.

A few letters were still in place, though not enough to spell out the building that had been destroyed forever...and all the lives that went with it.

_Little ones... _

Upon completing his task, he said, "Before I give you your new look, I want to tell you something."

He bared his knife to her as a sort of warning. She wisely suspended any further movement and focused her attention solely on him. The all-consuming fear held her in helpless silence. She had never felt a dread like this before. The terror licked like flames up her fragile insides, climbing her ribcage, seizing every cell. Every nerve ending she possessed had been shot. Dread accelerated. Dread held.

_There's no way out._

"I was married once. I _know_..." he shook his pocket knife nervously in front of her bruised breasts, barely scraping them, "That marriage...is a force to be reckoned with."

He frowned now as he recalled these stinging memories, these aggressive reveries that assailed him every now and again.

Her speculations were set apart by what he was actually frowning at, which was not an image of a wife in his head. He was aggravated that he didn't know whether or not he _had_ a wife. But if he did have one, then he loved her. If he had one, then she loved him too.

But something went wrong.

He couldn't ascertain the reality of their dispute. It had just ended. And he would never know what he did wrong. So, as always, he had to make up a reason. This one seemed more plausible right now.

The Joker's eyes narrowed. "Yeah, I had a wife once," he began, being suddenly immersed in a world he promised himself he would no longer covet, "She was very beautiful...just like _you_..." he grazed her quivering cheek with the tip of the blade. "In fact, you remind me of her. She had thick black hair just like you...at least...that's what I remember." He mumbled.

"She complained a lot that I never smiled. 'You should lighten up', was what she always told me..."

The sight of blood awakened him from that world, that memory. The powerful hue of red gave him the reason. He knew why his wife had left him. Now that he knew what to say, he smiled devilishly and cocked his head to the side, swaying the stringy green curls to the left.

"But she had a bad habit of getting mixed up with the wrong people. She couldn't pay them what she owed, and they.." he motioned the slashing of the flesh, using the woman's face to show her how they went about doing it. "...Carved her face. Made all these pretty little marks...but she was so sad. I didn't like seeing her sad. So I took a knife—like _this_ one—and put it right _here_—"

He placed the blade against the edge of her trembling lips. Then he proceeded to slowly slide the blade upward into the heated flesh of her cheek.

Excited into madness when the delicious miasma of blood began to emanate in the atmosphere, the searing pressure began to increase as he shaped her new smile. He flicked his tongue out and licked at the bitter taste of the makeup he grew to like.

The emotional high was unbearable, and he loved it.

She held in a whimper of protest, tensing her lips into the solemn frown he had once entertained upon mentioning his wife.

She prayed.

Prayed for the strength to endure. If she screamed, he would dig deeper. He would delve the blade so far into her face the tip would hit the front row of her teeth. She trembled.

And what if he kept pushing?

The woman immediately banished the thought from her mind, thinking of all she was here for. The life of her son.

Dead eyes. Unfeeling limbs.

_The life of her son?_

How could she endure this, when her child lay dead in her thoughts? Where he was simply a corpse laid upon the street?

Tears materialized at the corners of her eyes. _The life...of my son?_

Perturbed by the obdurate will of the woman not to utter a sound, he pushed the tip of the knife inward, biting his lip as he did so. As he had drawn blood from himself, he had caused a sudden torrent to gush out of her cheek, splattering over her pale throat. The blood seeped down into her cleavage, intermingling with the splotches of reddened skin.

Her lips did not part, though the muffled scream that was released battered the inside of her mouth like the force of an internal storm. She squirmed helplessly about in her wheelchair, whimpering like a dying canine. The screams that followed from further agony was held in by the barrier of her gnashing teeth.

And still the bell within the grandfather clock tolled, as if urging him on, like the demented contraption of judgment it had become.

She prayed.

Having drawn the blade up to her left ear, he stopped for a moment to study the half-arch he had created. It was almost perfectly circular, just how he wished he had made his own. Sometimes, whilst giving his victims "something to smile about", he noticed that their Glasgow made him jealous. Why was it that he could accomplish it so accurately on the face of another, but not himself? He grew angry.

Without further hesitation, he positioned the blade against the right edge of her lips, slicing into the flesh with utmost precision. The only difference in procedure from the left side was that he was cutting deeper, making the new bloody expression more noticeable.

Her muffled screams were louder now, as he had expected; even the vibrations her cry sent from her throat were devastatingly painful. Still she persisted in keeping her mouth closed. She knew what would happen if she shrieked. The weakened, mutilated chords of flesh that kept her mouth in one piece would rip, and she would bleed to death.

Finally, the blade had reached the edge of her right ear lobe.

His smile shifted to a grin, now exposing his yellow teeth. "I showed her...what I uh, did to myself. And she started laughing. I mean, she was _laughing_." His eyes widened a bit at this statement, expressing mild surprise even now, though the memory was aged and vague in his mind.

"And she must've lost it for two minutes straight," he licked his lips as he frowned once more and narrowed his eyes, "She wouldn't stop laughing. That's when I knew...that she looked in the mirror."

In the initial minutes preceding her mutilation, her ears had became deaf to all around her; the voice of her captor had become an incomprehensible drone. In fact, the pain had successfully eliminated the efficiency of her remaining senses. She no longer cared of anything that had naught to do with her pain, which the Joker carelessly disregarded.

Aside from the impending need to vomit, there was the swirling vortex of a stinging sensation in her temples. Being restrained from even bending her fingers, she could not console her tortured head. The woman gritted her teeth, her lips grinding against one another like slithering worms. It hurt just as badly to move them as to not. She suddenly felt a new urge overtake her.

She wanted to lick the edges of her mouth again and again, and never stop.

Her chin trembled as she barely released a low whimper. She leaned over slightly and allowed the flowing blood to cascade down her jaw, to seep onto her shoulders and collarbone. The ebony, unruly curls followed the slight movement of her head; the tendrils, already moist and dripping from sweat, completely blinded her previously blurry eyesight and rested against the bloody canal that had been inflicted on her face.

She cried almost soundlessly, praying again for the nepenthe that would never grace her.

Her fleeting perception would come and go in intervals that night, as she sat in that chair in insufferable pain, contemplating nothing and acknowledging no one.

But there was something that she would hear ceaselessly in her mind, words that would not dissipate until her grateful body had finally given out and her incompetent brain had ceased its marred functioning:

"The next day...I saw her. In her bedroom. By her bedroom window. She didn't look at me, but she knew I was there." The Joker's black depths were focused on her, but the woman could only see him out of the corner of her left eye. The rest had been cloaked by her dark, gnarled mane. She listened intently, just waiting for the half-drone, half-coherent speech to end.

He twisted the tip of the blade on his thumb, in turn twisting his skin and drawing blood again.

Suddenly his gaze became blank. "And she jumped off."

Her eyelids slowly commenced falling, having finally granted her that release she longed for even more than her son's sentient features. She willfully accepted the prospect of dying; she preferred to. And those words reiterated themselves relentlessly in her ears until the world ebbed away.

"_She jumped off."_

* * *

_Day Two, part 1: The Impasse _

* * *

The jagged, diamond shape of the mirror against the wall saw his purple lapels being adjusted. He tugged at his dark green tie, tightening it to his satisfaction. His scar-laden, strong fingers wove a smooth path down the length of his stringy green-tinted curls, some springing freely back to their original shape, while the structure of others were straightened by his palm sliding against them.

His black eyes narrowed precariously. He smiled.

Turning to her with his usual jubilant humor, he said, "Alright, Bo Peep, I've got a few uh, _errands_ to run, so I'll see you in a few hours. When I get back, I can tell you all about it and then we'll...never mind.." he licked his lips, "_That's _a secret. Hee hee hee."

The woman licked the edges of her lips the moment he turned his attention to the mirror to pick at his teeth. For hours, she wanted so badly to lick her lips, to heal and moisturize that sore, serrated flesh. She now understood why the Joker always did that—even if it had been years since he inflicted it on himself. It was an impulse impossible to disobey.

She shuddered inwardly at the thought of what her face looked like—she could feel dried tears upon her cheeks, which were covered in dirt (she had to sleep on the floor, which he never swept), and almost cried outright when she thought of the consequences of her open wounds being exposed to the air for so long. If she had gotten an infection, that would increase her pain.

_Pain_. She never knew one word could evoke so much fear.

Her captor turned to her once more, smiling at the sight of her confined to the wall by wrist shackles with chains attached that measured two feet in length. Though she knew she had some freedom of movement, she thought it best to stay dumb and silent, lest his anger be provoked once more. She had come to dread this man more than her own husband.

At first, she was sitting like a doll on a shelf, but now that the Joker's eyes were on her, the overwhelming apprehension forced her to reposition. Any pressure applied to her abdomen was painful, so she could only withdraw her legs half way to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked away, though ensuring that his actions could still be surveyed out of the corner of her eye.

He pulled out a red cloth from his pocket and sauntered up to her merrily, savoring those red rimmed, tear filled eyes. He immediately blindfolded her. A intense surge of panic flared the moment she was deprived of her eyesight. She screamed out, which caused various lacerations along the length of her Glasgow to tear apart. The woman closed her mouth and covered it with her hands, screaming behind the barrier of her teeth. The Joker giggled.

"Now screaming isn't such a bright idea anymore, is it, Bo?" He jeered.

She shuttered and inhaled, opening her mouth slightly to allow the passage of air. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, which the Joker, in his sadistic mindset, found appealing. He licked away her tears as she whimpered, trying to ward him off by fidgeting. He grew annoyed and and tugged at her hair, eliciting a small cry of discomfort.

She came into no further contact with the Joker after that; if she were very unwise, she might have breathed a sigh of relief at that.

However, she still heard his footsteps, sending haunting echoes to irritate her ear drums. A revving sound startled her; she gasped as she felt the ground shaking as an unknown object of considerable size was making its way up to them. She heard a metal door slide open and close. She waited.

In a few seconds, the unknown object, which she had conceived as an elevator, was escorting him to the bottom floor. It dinged twice, which made her jump.

She waited again, the Joker having left her to maddening contemplation.

_I'm really going to die here._

The words had little effect until she began repeating it again and again in her mind, allowing the stinging panic to excite her nerve endings into a frenzy. Indeed, there was a high probability that she would not make it out, even if this Batman came beforehand. If that diabolical demon wouldn't end her life, her mind would drive her to the greatest heights of insanity, and that would be her ultimate downfall.

That is, if the Joker left her alone long enough to allow that to happen.

She found herself eagerly wishing for death; she embraced it, and adored the idea. She knew a normal, sane human being would not wish for the termination of it's own existence, and the woman had never given thought to ending her own life before, even through the many beatings her husband had given her. But now the notion was impossible to ignore, impossible to wait for. She needed it now.

But what would grant her this other than pain? Was there not a way she could die peacefully, or so quickly she would feel nothing?

Her discolored, blood caked lips began to loosen from each other with the birth of a probable conviction. The bottom one descended slowly to reveal her reddened gums while the other elevated above it. Her eyes widened with the same speed.

There was a way.

"_If you walk out of range..."_

That statement could not have brought her to a more devastating, yet anticipated conclusion.

Yes. Yes, if she walked out of range, then the bomb inside her would detonate.

Yes. Her way out...

Her way out...

The woman reached up to her eyes, tearing away the blindfold that he had put in place in order to keep her from finding out what transported him to the ground floor. The cloth slipped from her jittery fingers, wafting noiselessly to the ground.

"There's a way out.." she said, almost too quickly to be comprehended by her tangled thoughts, now unraveling themselves in the wake of suicidal intent.

It wouldn't matter if she died, would it? After all, Adrian is dead, thus permanently rendering her existence useless. There was nothing to go back to even if she was saved. What would she do? Go back to her husband? Or the funeral of her dead child?

No, no, no, no, _no..._the woman thought, shaking her head while issuing a blank stare at the wall. She couldn't. She could never go back. Her state of mind was no longer worthy of trust. Who knew what she would do once she was released back into society? No, her life was already over. She had died the moment that building erupted into a tempest of pyre and destruction, leaving only the bones of infants and waifs to wander about the wreckage, grieving to heaven.

Her beloved everything, her child, that angel she had delivered from her womb, was no longer alive. There was nothing to live for now.

The woman stood up, ignoring the shooting pain that resulted from the bomb shifting its position in her stomach. The malicious device would give her no pain as she slept (provided she could even sum up the courage to rest around that man), nor as she was awake, so long as she did not move or shuffle about. It had taken quite a while for her body to grow accustomed to the unwelcome new occupant.

She remembered that the Joker had stirred from his sleep that night, only to give her an odd look, grumble, and fall back into slumber. The slightest movement that evoked sound would wake him, and this only increased her fiendish paranoia. She was under the assumption that he thought she was very capable of escaping, when she clearly was not. That frightened her to no end. Not only was he devious, he was vigilant. Provided that, it would be taxing to try to end her existence under his watch.

Last night, he had chained her to the wall, saying, "I was thinking of hanging you from the ceiling head first, so all the blood could rush to your head, but that would make you lose consciousness, and then when I want to play with you, you wouldn't be up to it. But don't fret; my intention _is_ to kill you, just very...very..._slowly_." He raked at the curls of her hair, the delicate sifting of his fingers matching his tone. It seemed he found an odd liking to her blood-soaked tresses, which was intensely disgusting.

She licked her lips and cast out the disturbing reverie from her mind, which was soon occupied by new, perilous thoughts.

So this was her one and only chance at freedom. After this, there was really no way out. If she failed, then she was to die a slow, agonizing death. She couldn't allow that to happen. If he wouldn't grant her a swift death, then she would.

After these notions were successfully imprinted into her mind, she began to search frantically for a possible exit. The sickening feeling in her began to intensify as she limped about his abode, careful to limit herself to the distance the chains allowed. She moved the sofas (except for the spiked ones), expecting a trap door, but there wasn't any.

She opened the case of the grandfather clock, reluctant to touch it should it commence its loathsome tolling again, but she found that was not needed; it held nothing of interest inside. Yanking at the door of a rust-caked iron maiden, she found that scraps of clothing and fresh blood still hung from the deadly spears. The smell was absolutely horrendous. She shuddered in abhorrence and closed it immediately.

To her extreme disappointment, there were no outlets save for the ominous, barricaded door with the red exit sign above it.

As she drew nearer to it, a sudden rush of cold air seeped past her feet from the underside of the door. The sudden change in temperature stunned her; for what seemed like the longest minute, she stared sheepishly at the possible mode of salvation. She did not know what lay behind it, and she tried avidly to stifle her grotesque imagination.

The cold air seemed to carry a fear with it that easily suffused itself into her bloodstream, triggering her heart into a sudden overdrive. She lifted up her quivering arm and clutched at her chest, attempting to dissuade the adrenaline, but to no avail. Still she trembled at the involuntary will of her body. That terror, that intense anticipation, would not leave her.

What was more unavoidable was her overwhelming curiosity. What lay behind that door?

"Trap doors...chambers..." she whispered to herself inaudibly, the words of her captor filling her brain. She listed lazily to the left side of the door to see if there were any crevices that would allow her limited perception of the interior.

The door was aged, that much she knew. It was likely decades older than her. Perhaps if she got a hold of something blunt, she could break a chunk off of the door and slide through it. This was the exit, she tried to convince herself. The Joker's claim of the death traps it held had to have been a lie to abate any will of disobedience.

Her eyes continually flitted from the red exit sign to the wooden, malevolent looking door. It said exit. So it had to be. It had to be.

She needed to break it down somehow...

Wait. The door was firmly locked and barricaded for a reason. Whatever is behind that thing is obviously...unstable. But she had to know.

The woman held in her breath, squinting her eyes closed. She resigned herself to serious contemplation.

It could be severely fastened because the door itself was a trap. There could be an internal mechanism that would propel into action if she touched it. Furthering her thoughts concerning this theory, she reasoned that if this be so, then the Joker possessed a key of some kind that would disengage the device should he ever need to open it. That key, she concluded, was doubtlessly in his pockets.

She gritted her teeth, trying to deny the probability of these notions, but they advised her to deal cautiously, shunning any desire for impetuous action. They also relayed to her the very despondent, unwelcome message that there was truly no way to the bottom floor, and if there was...it was 'rigged', as he had coined it.

The woman decided to inspect the door anyway; she was desperate beyond comprehension. But to her intense dismay, the chains had reached their intended limit. Her stomach coiled at the realization. If this was an exit, then he must have purposely shortened the chains in order to tantalize her with the fact that she did not have access to it.

But that faint, dying hope still had life in it yet.

_Wait_, she thought. There was that elusive machine that escorted him downstairs. It had to be hidden somewhere in this room. Somewhere...but it was here. She just needed to look for it. It was here. _It was here_, she repeated to herself, trying to swell her faith in liberation.

The woman headed toward the direction where she had heard the machine come from. It seemed only about a foot away from where she was sitting, which only did good for her conscience. The sound of the chains clattering against the ground reminded her of her limited walking range. But taking into consideration that the machine was within her reach, it almost didn't matter anymore.

She peered at the wall. A lone iron maiden stood there, drenched in darkness. She was afraid to encounter that horrid smell again, and the sight of blood. She speculated he had placed an unfortunate man in there once—probably one of his many cohorts. Clenching her fists, she took in another gulp of air and touched the metal, allowing her fingers to grow accustomed to the cold. Without further ado, she tore away the face of the maiden, revealing to her a dimly lit alcove.

The excitement was too much to bear. Especially considering the fact that the Joker would be gone for hours, and would not find out his 'secret game' had been ruined until it was far too late. Her eyes widened suddenly. 'Secret Game'? That was the name of the lullaby...the one she sang to her son...

Before she could stop herself, she began to weep. Then the melody began to play very vividly in her mind.

"_Come to me...we never be apart...the soul you seek is me...no more pain...no memories remain...now you can play with me..."_

"_So love me now...you are the one...I give you all the stars I see...the rain is gone...no pain is here...my heart, I beg you all your love..."_

She collapsed onto her knees, gasping for air she felt she never had the chance to breathe until this very moment. Horrible memories attacked her consciousness, increasing the need to die, and the reality of this nightmare.

The universe stood at a standstill. The woman grasped her knees, crying unto them helplessly.

She felt infected. Infected by everything around her. This place was a disease. Her mind was being rotted from the inside, her entire being was suffering. This had to end.

The woman breathed in the air, trying to instill the notion in her head that what she was about to do was something that could not be undone.

She prayed.

Prayed for forgiveness. Prayed that her son, who she loved and lived for, who was never to know another breath or the soft caress of his mother ever again, would forgive her.

_I love you baby...I love you..._she wept. _I'm sorry._

Somehow she still could not embed the reality that her son was completely out of existence. He had to be somewhere, there had to be a conscience that was his own in some other realm, who could still perceive the events of the world he left. Somehow.

In the depths of her mind, she proclaimed her love for him endlessly, words intermingling with the others and still yet coherent and absolutely clear to her. She loved her son. She would always love him. And now that he is no more, soon neither will she. His death severed the umbilical cord that binded her to life, to intangible agony.

_There's nothing left to live for._

* * *

He strode up to the car, leaving droplets of blood to dot his way to the Jeep Wrangler. He wore that inevitable, trademark smile, but inside he was seething. This little run-in with Batman was almost the death of him. But good thing he gave him a licking of his own, otherwise he would have died.

Dying isn't part of his agenda—neither is Arkham, Gordon, or the Mob. He was even beginning to resent Batman's will to interfere, which genuinely surprised him. He usually loved playing around with the Bat, but for now he did not.

Following the mayhem he wreaked in Little One's Daycare, he just couldn't get his mind off of her. That woman who had revived an age old urge in him that humans were subject to in their childhood years—the "ant and the magnifying glass" impulse, as he liked to refer to it.

This had become more than just a game to him. This was a test. Something he liked to refer to as a "social experiment". For this particular specimen, his purpose was to test the extent of a mother's love.

"Heh heh heh," he chuckled weakly at the thought, trying to ignore the discomfort. He was also fighting the instinct to pluck that star out of his forearm, but he knew that wasn't wise. He'd bleed a good amount and be delirious before before he got back to the 'Box'.

The Joker dug at his aged facial deformity with his lips in an unconscious attempt to refrain from thinking about his wounded appendage; it seemed to be working, which he was subtly grateful for. He yanked open the door with his good arm, hopping into the driver's seat with a smile that was only withheld by compelling habit. He was growing angrier for some reason he had yet to identify. He felt something was not as it should have been.

He furiously shoved his keys into the ignition, gritting his teeth as the engine roared. He stomped on the pedal and sped off.

* * *

The interior was only lit by a single strobe light that wavered to and fro as she entered, inspiring a faint fear in her.

The insufficient light hit one particular object that captured her interest: a red button protruding from the wall. Before further thought could interject, she slammed down on it with her palm.

She cried out in astonishment when the iron maiden slammed shut as if on its own accord and a metal door slid closed in front of her. To her intense amazement, the door effortlessly severed the chains in one swift crush. She began laughing breathlessly and hyperventilating at the same time, feeling that one moment unbelievable. She senselessly withdrew into the back of the elevator as it dinged twice and set off for its journey to the bottom floor. The woman slid down the wall with widened eyes focused on the darkness in front of her as she was lowered down.

_I'm free. I'm free..._she reiterated to herself, as she savored the sound of the crushing metal echoing in her mind.

The elevator had stopped before she could prepare herself for the landing. Her heart lurched in her chest when she saw the metal door sliding open, welcoming an atmosphere that smelled horrible. She recognized the offending odor instantly.

Meat. Rotting meat.

Her nose was firmly held by her hand, which in reality, didn't smell much better than the Joker or the horrid stench she was now stuck in. In fact, her skin had been completely defiled by his smell, though she had only been trapped in his dwelling for less than half a day.

She shrunk back in sudden repugnance, coughing as she futilely tried to keep herself from breathing it in. Realizing that the door would not wait for her, she sprung into a quick run and left the elevator. The double ding startled her, making her whip around to watch the machine descend up the building until it had left her range of eyesight.

The woman stood there in an astounded stupor for a moment, before finally catching her senses. She analyzed her surroundings with a foreign interest she had never known before. She usefully deducted that the place would be rigged with traps that the Joker had cleverly installed to insure her captivity, so she treaded cautiously, vigilant of any suspicious looking objects.

The floor she found herself in was very reminiscent of a warehouse, but she thought it best not to come to any certain conclusion about her location.

That's when she saw it.

The warehouse led to a lot and then a vacant road. Plain as daylight, it was in front of her.

She was almost tempted to smile, but the thought of escaping destroyed any notion previous to it.

The way out.

The way out.

She leaped into a full on run, ignoring the stinging pain the bomb evoked from being shuffled about in her stomach. Her legs seemed to move without her permission, without the consent of her own brain. She could care less.

Fleeting memories played themselves in her mind. She saw her son, her husband. He struck her down. She rose above it. He struck her down again. She rose again. Her son frowned. He cried. He wept. He embraced her. He lay peacefully against her bosom, warm in his small bed. He wrapped his fingers around her hair and smiled. He called her "Mamma".

This only made her run faster. She needed to get away from this. She didn't want to know this sorrow any longer, nor did she want to hear that broken, insipid word. No, she didn't want to hear it anymore. It only served to remind her that he was gone.

The chains dangled and clacked against the ground behind her.

_Gone._

She felt like she was flying.

_Gone. _

Death was near.

_Gone._

It had arrived.

But that was not the only thing that had arrived.

She released a loud gasp, almost tripping over her own feet as she skidded to a dead halt. The movement was too sudden for her, and she toppled over, falling onto her back and crying out in pain.

The black Jeep Wrangler that had transported her here was driving with hellish speed up the road, beeping loudly. From afar, the Joker looked furious. His eyes flared with life and venomous vigor, his lips contorting into a hard, disapproving frown. He clutched the steering wheel with both hands and swerved violently in a semi circle, skidding to a dead stop right before the wide entrance of the building.

Unaffected by his own brash parking, his attention was fixed completely on his untrustworthy captive. He took a moment to grit his teeth at the woman, waiting, just waiting for her to do something bold. As he had predicted, she had forced herself upright and began running frantically toward him, still hell-bent on detonating the bomb.

He quickly snatched a brown bag and flung himself out of the car, slamming the door so hard the window cracked. He sneered distastefully at the realization.

_She's tryin' to kill herself_, he thought with utmost anger and disappointment.

"Not so fast, Missy," the Joker quickly mumbled, shoving his hand into his jacket pocket and fumbling around for the remote. Luckily, before she could exceed the limit and end her life, he hastily swiped out the device and pressed hard on the button.

The woman had initially thought that the Joker would not be able to stop her because of his wound, but she had been proven wrong. As she saw him sift out his remote, her entire body tensed and waited for the bomb to give a warning beep that indicated it was being set off. But to her shock, it did not. Instead, it started to react in a way she had not anticipated.

Mere inches away from an impending implosion, she had collapsed onto the ground. She seized and wailed helplessly in pain, the bomb having begun to vibrate viciously in her stomach.

He poked at the side of his lips with his tongue, staring apathetically at the pitiful woman, now attempting to drag herself beyond the allowed distance. He sauntered up to her with hard, fast paced steps, stopping right at her quivering fingers. Gently, he nudged them away from the faded yellow line upon the ground. He bent down to her level.

The vibrations had ceased.

"What an ungrateful wench," he snarled, applying pressure to her fingers with the bottom of his boot. She made a small cry, covering her face from his merciless glare. He didn't appreciate that at all. He hated it when people looked away. It was the equivalent of being ignored. And he _hated_ being ignored.

The Joker tugged at her hair, "_Look_ at me, Bo." He whispered insidiously, stirring her ebony strands with his breath.

Unskillfully, she slowly brought her eyes to his, squinting, as she was afraid that her apparent disobedience would entice him to strike her. Her lower lip trembled with blood and saliva that the vibrating had caused her to regurgitate. "Please..." she murmured soundlessly, a wisp of blood sliding from her mouth like spider silk.

Without so much as a warning, he yanked her up to her knees by her hair, managing to rip out a good quantity right from her scalp. She covered her mouth instinctively, commencing her sobbing within the confines of her tightly shut lips.

"I go to the trouble to desecrate a grocery store just so I can feed this ingrate bitch who totally _forgot_what she's here for!" He lamented, slapping his thigh with his hand, "After all I've gone through, I come home to a suicidal maniac tryin' to back out on our deal!" He narrowed his gaze and lowered his loud, poisonous tone, "Even to a guy like me...thats bad..." he shook his head in disfavor and waved his finger back and forth, "That's _bad_."

She trembled before him, basking in overwhelming shame and degradation. Her hair fell over her face, obscuring her profile as she wept. Her chance. Her chance was gone. He came before she could escape.

Then that thought came back to haunt her, to remind her of her ultimate fate once more. It was all she needed to be driven over the edge.

_I'm really going to die here.  
_

"And to think.." He stood up, snapping his fingers, to which she tried to stand, but could find no strength in her left to do so. Losing his patience, he grasped her faded, white t-shirt and brought her to her feet. She still felt very weary from those violent vibrations; the Joker knew she would not be able to walk on her own, so he flung her over his shoulder, slapping her back twice as if she were a discontented infant.

"...To think you'd have more integrity knowing your son is still alive." He grumbled.

Her eyes widened. _What?_


	4. The Fun House

Author's Note: Through writer's block, through sweat, frustration, and debilitating anger I have finally given you the fourth installment of this irreverent monster, in my quest to murder the Mary Sue. Beware: it's terrifyingly long.

P. S: If you could count how many times the word 'death' appears in this chapter and tell me, that would be great. Just for the sadistic statistics.

* * *

"_Wild animals never kill for sport. Man is the only one to whom the torture and death of his fellow creatures is amusing in itself."_

_James Anthony Froud_

* * *

_Day Two, part 2: Admonition_

* * *

The garage door slid down to the pavement and closed the path to liberation forever. He picked up the brown bag and tucked it under his arm.

"After the explosion, I could swear that your son was pile of cinders," the Joker whistled, "Lucky you.."

The woman let out a ragged breath of astonishment. "What are you talking about?" she cried.

The Joker tilted his head. "See, I can be the bearer of good news, too."

Regurgitated blood and saliva drowned out her voice. Her sore throat felt like a dry patch of fire inside her, a malnourished tube that burned, burned, burned..

Unable to handle the excitement, her breaths came out in wheezes. A painful vertigo unleashed unholy fury on her senses. Colors came to life, dancing. Sounds of whirring machinery and wailing pounded her eardrums mercilessly. In this cacophony of threatening sound and surreal imagery, one notion remained intact:

_There's no way. No way he could have survived the explosion.._

He smiled. "Allow me to elaborate." Out from his jacket pocket came a bloody, half folded assortment of papers.

Her eyes relayed his image vaguely. A swaying clown in a purple suit. White, pink and green papers flapped in her face. Judging by the blood, they had been seized forcefully. The Joker flattened them out and grinned. "I checked on your son this morning."

Her eyes widened.

"He's in the hospital—_comatose_. The right side of his face is pretty crispy and he's on a machine, but hey—at least he's _alive!_" He breathlessly laughed.

"_No!"_

The outcry was too much for her vocal chords to handle and her voice cracked. Her aggravated stomach kept sending up the blood, the vomit.. She tried to lift herself off the floor, but the Joker pressed his boots into her back. Whimpering, she withdrew.

"No, no, no...lemme explain. I got these papers especially for you." He giggled, relishing that unrelenting terror in her eyes. "Lemme _explain_..."

He brought them to his view. "Says here that your son was trapped underneath a car—a teal Ford Mustang—for 3 hours before the firemen heard his muffled cries."

_God. My car. _

"When they found him, the left side of his face was terribly disfigured, and his right hand is so charred it's unusable—"

While she wept, he sifted through the highly technical speech until he happened upon something particularly traumatizing. "Immobile—charred—contaminated—"

"_Ah_! _Here's_ a good part! Says the kid 'descended into a state of shock' soon after he was rushed into the paramedics. His left arm is so crushed from the impact the nerve damage is catastrophic—and the doctors are considering amputation.."

He shook his head in feigned sympathy with that abominable grin of his. "_Eww.._"

The woman covered her ears and closed her eyes tight. Both of her hands were slapped away. "Listen, Bo—this is for _you_—not me. _You_ are the one that decided to run away—_you_ are the one who wanted to back out on our deal."

She bit her lip and drew blood. More than anything she wished she would go deaf.

"You've never been blown to bits, so who are you to think it isn't painful? That's what you wanted, wasn't it? To die a painless death? Honey, bombs are all _about_ pain." He held her hand as if he intended to propose.

He then whispered his loathsome breath into her ear: "The nurse told me that it's likely he will be comatose until his prepubescent years..."

She tried once again to lift her hand to her ears, to which he squeezed harder.

"Do you know how uh, _easy_ it is to end your son's life? All it takes is pulling out a tube. Just one little tube!" He held out a finger. "And he'll stop breathing. And I'll make you watch me take your son off of life support." He narrowed his eyes. "...Is that what you want?"

"No..." she mouthed.

But what did it matter? She didn't want any of _this_, though she found herself here anyway...

"You were trying to kill yourself because you thought your son was dead—but now that you know he's _alive_...well, you seem to have a little more color in your cheeks.." He pinched her cheek. Her gaze remained downcast and she said nothing.

"You know what else I noticed? Your son means everything to you. When I showed you the news, your sanity really seemed to wither. You thought he was dead. Then I drove up and saw you runnin'...all because you thought there was nothing to live for. But you didn't _know_ he was dead—you _thought_ he was dead. There's a big difference between _thinking_..." he waved his finger to one side, then the other, "And _knowing_."

Foolish Bo Peep.

"You didn't realize I uh, _gave_ you something to live for. What kind of life were you living in _that_ place, with a whiny brat of a son and an asshole of a husband giving you a hard time? Face it, Babs, this is the most fun you've had in a _looong_ time."

With a face devoid of emotion, tears slid down her cheeks. He aligned her face with his and his stare grew stern. "I'll let this slide, since it's only been two days since you've been here, and I'm hungry for a good game. But if you disobey _again_—it's either the life support or _this_."

The Joker yanked her to her feet as one would have a puppet hanging in subjection to its strings. Disregarding the difficulty of her standing up, he dragged her by her hair into a darkened, narrow hallway with dusty strobe lights on the ceiling.

Mice squealed. Cockroaches and water bugs scurried across her feet. Rats jumped into holes they'd dug for themselves. As he smashed a rat's abdomen under his boot, it was finally clear to her that he truly lacked a conscience. The humans whose lives he took were no more significant than the insects and rodents he crushed under his feet. In his eyes, she was worth no more than them. The apathetic stance he took against any form of life was revolting in every way imaginable.

It was terrifying beyond belief to know that the man she'd once seen in the news taunting Batman was now holding her hostage at the exchange of her child's life.

Those fists, those infuriated eyes of her husband were no longer of any importance now, nor worthy of fear. There were terrors far exceeding petty domestic abuse.

The light was close ahead. Just a few more feet of walking in this inconceivable filth, and they'd be at their destination.

She was brought into sunlight. Not anticipating such a sudden change of atmosphere, she was rendered temporarily blind. During this brief sightless interlude she tried to analyze her surroundings with her remaining senses. Wet straw sifted beneath her feet. The chilly air caused goosebumps to materialize on her skin, and she shivered in response. The smell was horrendous.

The colorful dots behind her lids dissipated and she found herself in a diminished stable.

His hand swept the area to intimate that she investigate. Deducing it unwise to disobey, she stumbled forward.

Broken down, wooden stalls held wailing animals within them. She gaped at the skinny limbs of a dying horse, trying to drag itself out of its confinement, but an array of chains held it in place. It whinnied frantically, then suddenly died. A small pool of blood seeped onto the ground, completely robbed of the normal crimson color. Almost black. Its pale, emaciated tongue hung limply from its discolored lips. The teeth of the beast were yellow and decayed. Its black eyes were lifeless pools of ebony. Bile beckoned to her as she saw that rusty fishhooks were latched deep into its skin. The loops of flesh they penetrated were a reddish purple hue—a color endorsed from infection.

She moved on. In the next stall, an even more vile stench assailed her. She lurched back and covered her nose. A rotting lamb, long since dead, was being feasted on by a starving mare whose skin clung to its bones. A blood-caked noose hung from the lamb's neck. It had been hanged. The horse fully immersed its mouth into the lacerated belly of the lamb. It seemed that the horse had tugged at the lamb's skin with its teeth until decay had made it possible to tear through. After it fully devoured a long strip of the lamb's bluish intestine, it peered at her with wild eyes—horribly blood shot. Rays of light from the fragmented roof of the stable shot down on its face; in turn, the horses eyes immediately dilated.

It whinnied and whimpered, thrashing itself against the wall of the stable, hooves outstretched. Crying for help. For the briefest moment she was tempted to release it, but feared that removing the fish hooks from its back would kill it.

This one outcry sparked many others: horses and pigs cried behind her too, screaming... The livestock had been weakened not only by extreme exposure to disease, but unsatisfied hunger. Had they the strength to liberate themselves, they might have tackled her to the ground and devoured her.

She backed away clumsily and caught her hair in a dangling fishhook. She grasped the chain and squirmed helplessly and screamed incoherent, religious gibberish.

The Joker yanked her hair from the fishhook and took her hand in his, swinging her around in a merry dance. Maniacally he sang:

"_Hush a bye, don't you cry,_

_Go to sleepy little baby,_

_When you wake, you'll have cake—_

_And all the pretty little horses._

_Way down yonder, down in the meadow,_

_There's a poor wee little lamby—"_

He glimpsed at the flies resting comfortably in the lamb's empty eye sockets.

He continued to sing:

"_The bees and butterflies picking at its eyes,_

_The poor wee thing cried for his mammy.."_

Now weak and weary, she fell onto his chest, sobbing helplessly into his coat. She no longer possessed the strength to pull away from him. No matter. He would force her back into his embrace again. The repulsive monster..

He whispered into her tendrils the last verse of the song:

"_Hush a bye, don't you cry,_

_Go to sleepy little baby,_

_When you wake, you'll have cake—_

_And all the pretty. Little. Horses.."_

An eerie silence elapsed.

"Look—see, what I'm going to do..." he pushed her away and she stumbled onto the floor. Her sharp yelp of pain was ignored. He snatched a broken bowl, slapped her face to receive attention, and displayed it before her. She trembled and looked warily up at him.

"See, what I'm gonna do is tie each of your limbs to the leg of a horse, and put four bowls of food at each corner of the room—" He indicated every corner with his finger. "_That_ will coax them into a canter...and what will happen to you?"

The thought drove her over the edge. Her chest and neck were splattered with vomit. He smiled and brought her face to his, while completely disregarding his now bile-covered glove. "_Tell_ me...what happens to you?"

"I.."

"Hm?"

"I-I'll—b-be.."

His eyes widened as he waited for the answer.

"Torn apart.."

The Joker nodded. "That's right."

* * *

"_You're afraid. Why?" he asked, tilting his head. "Didn't you want to die in the first place?"_

"_I.."_

_He lifted her chin to his level, as he often did. She had the bad habit of not looking him in the eyes. "What does death mean to you?"_

_Such a peculiar question. Of course, her answer would be wrong. She was always wrong._

_Death is.._

_Death is..?_

"_It means...you don't suffer anymore." she managed._

"_Is death a place, or a state?"_

"_A state..?" she answered warily. What if it was a place? What really was death? Was he going to tell her? Did he know?_

"_What does death mean to you?" she mumbled, subtly afraid to ask. How she wished to tell him that she didn't fear death, but only the pain death brought with it._

_A moment of contemplation. A thought flickered in his usually hostile eyes, now softened by his musing._

_He replied, "Death means little to me. It's the last joke in a series of bad jokes."_

* * *

She snapped out of her dream-like state. He was rattling her shoulders again. When she immersed herself too deep in thought, he was always there to bring her back to sordid reality.

She scanned the room. Usual torture devices abound. The iron maidens looked as bloody as ever. On the table where the rigged television sat, the contents of the brown bag was revealed to be groceries. He had a strange taste in food. The bag was torn in the middle, revealing a jar of mixed peanut butter and jelly, baked beans, a loaf of bread, vanilla ice cream, a bunch of yogurts, from Danimals to Trix, raw bacon, Doritoes, Purina Dog Chow, and to top it all off: a can of spinach with Popeye the sailor on the cover.

In his hand he held a sloppy salami and peanut butter and jelly sandwich in his hand, and when he put it on his lap to get her attention again, black finger prints were left on the bread. Without any warning whatsoever he began poking and fondling her bruised and discolored breasts. "Huh...you're really sore. Does this hurt?"

"..It hurts."

He tugged at her dirty bra, "You're no stranger to pain, are you? You've gone past the point of screaming and crying. You're used to this. You've had practice. That's why you can take it."

"I have to do what is necessary for the safety of my child," she said. Her lips trembled with something like bravery.

The Joker tilted his head back and forth lazily and peered up at the ceiling. "What's necessary..." he rocked his head from side to side, echoing, "Necessary.."

Then he added: "I hope it's a long week, because you've given up the _necessities_. No food or water 'til your son turns three."

She barely had time to protest when he pressed a button and nudged her backward. A slot on the ceiling withdrew, and a gargantuan bird cage was hoisted down by ropes and chains. It hit the ground with a massive thud, disturbing dust, shaking tables and setting off bear traps.

She was going to be put in there. Still a slave to instinct, she tried to flee, but the Joker was quick to voice his vehemence. She backed into the wall, shivering.

He spoke slowly. "I think you should uh, know by now that—after that little stunt you pulled on the ground floor...I'm _not_ in the mood for any more of your shi_t. _I don't think you know how fragile this is..." He pointed to himself. "_You _swim in _my_ sea."

Tremors shook viciously the fragile frame that was her body.

"Get in. Before I have to get _really_ nasty."

She stumbled into the bird cage and collapsed onto her knees. He locked the door and tossed the key into his jacket pocket. She ran up to the bars and grasped them tightly. "What did you do with my son? Did you leave him there?!"

He swiped out a pair of cuffs and latched them onto her wrists and, in turn, enclosing them around the bars. She gasped and pulled at them frantically, but with a flick on the forehead, a thousand cries died on her lips.

He sang again in cheerful taunting:

"_Peter, Peter, _

_Pumpkin eater,_

_Had a wife and couldn't keep her._

_He put her in a pumpkin shell,_

_And there he kept her very well."_

He giggled and threw a blanket over the cage, shrouding her in darkness.

* * *

_Day Three, part 1: Valley of the Shadow_

* * *

There was nothing to be done but wait. Wait to die. Wait to live. Wait for an absolution that may never come.

Time encased her in a veil of dread. There was a terrible, terrible sickening of the stomach; the pain from the unwelcome explosive wedged in her uterus paled in comparison. Her psychological wars were mighty and many, and her physical pains few. Fear was a state of mind, but that didn't make it any less harder to fight off than a palpable threat. Of course it came with the delightful side dish of her son's state.

Wait—weren't people in comas unresponsive to pain...?

He didn't feel anything.

_'What kind of a life is that?'_ the Joker jeered.

Her son's life depended on hers. But was it really necessary for him to live any longer? He would be horribly disfigured for the rest of his life. He would have no left arm. He's in a deathly coma. That coma would last until he's ten years old, maybe even twelve at the very latest. And these are just conjectures of ill-placed optimism. Doctors with realistic opinions theorize that he'll _never_ wake up.

She could die, and then that would mean that his suffering would end also. This wasn't a suicidal thought to her, but an inevitable turn of events. There was no real chance of the Joker's letting her go. Hence, their heads were both laying expectantly at the guillotine.

The Joker didn't need her for anything; she needed him for everything.

Surprise, surprise. The cover came off and an unprecedented light attacked her vulnerable irises. She cried out and blinded herself.

The light wasn't from the bulbs. It was dawn. Dawn had come. Just when she thought the world had ended.

The metal shackles were removed, no longer permitted to fuse her wrists onto the bars and make her veins protrude from hindered circulation. Her hands fell to her lap with a fleshy slap. The metal clanked on the floor. Slowly she brought her eyes to that unbearable sight. The man that, with only a set of impossibly black, observant eyes, set the fatality of her existence. She soiled herself, though she really didn't take note of the piss staining her already tainted undergarments.

He was a glowing demon in the potent sunlight—his eyes bright with the terror of evil and the bloody red smile giving it a sinister finish. She faintly thought that someone else had dreaded that smile once. Someone who spent a day or a night in his iron maiden or thrown into that door with the exit sign above it.

The Joker opened the cage, but she didn't want freedom. Freedom was death; and the cage was a sanctum.

"Bo Peep, my darling, you pretty thing.." he croaked softly, "You know it's time to play. Entertain me, and you'll stay on my good side." He made sad eyes, a gross incongruity of the scarred happiness extant on his face. "Don't make my smile disappear."

He beckoned with a bending, gloved finger.

Why did her deepest instincts choose to emerge in a situation where death was the only option, the only outcome? His smile was just as deadly as his frown. Any expression he made spelled death.

She obeyed. He surveyed her with obsessive precision. A rubber band was pulled out from his jacket pocket with a painful snap, and he tied it around her hair and alleviated her of the black, curly burden. With a lick of his lips, a stern eye, and a thumb placed thoughtfully on his chin, he came to some decision. He drew away from her and shrouded himself behind a curtained-off room.

She waited.

He reappeared with a brown bottle and a few cotton balls. Without so much as warning her he dipped what she immediately identified as alcohol on a cotton ball and placed it on her lips, hard. It soaked. And she bled as a result.

Her mouth remained closed. She only prayed her tightly shut eyes would not provoke him to irritation, or worse, violence. As it was, she was in for something malignant. This was, after all, a game.

He slid it from one end of her Glasgow to the other, until it was sated in blood. She opened her eyes to see him carelessly discard it somewhere and take another in between his pinched forefinger and thumb. He used the second one to dab at her serrated wound until it was laden with puss, old bile and blood.

Her lips felt dryer, and though she would never show it, she was grateful. And there was also some kind of tension between them that she wouldn't will herself to recognize. She only hoped it wasn't mutual; when he felt something, he acted upon it fiercely.

As a finishing touch he imbued the last cotton ball with alcohol and dabbed her Glasgow one final time, from end to end. Her eyes had softened; so had his. If for only a minute, there was no threat of imminent harm. He was just cleaning her up.

"You know," he pointed at her face, "Your smile isn't pretty when it's got all that nasty shit caked to it. Just makes ya look like you got a bad _outbreak_."

The woman abstracted her gaze from him.

He dropped the last cotton ball on the floor and placed the bottle of alcohol dangerously close to the rigged television. She briefly wondered if liquid could set off an explosive. But then that wouldn't explain why her stomach acid hadn't detonated _hers_...

She noticed he had a vicious looking device in his hand that had been taken from the bear-trap collection on the table. It looked like a metal, mechanical muzzle with inverted teeth pointing to the roof of the mouth. He strapped it onto her face, restraining her with a choke-hold grip around her neck. He pulled a notch on it, causing a green and red button to light up on the mask and tighten around her mouth. "Ahh...there we go. Little present for you. Just so you know, it has more of a kick then the one in your belly. If it isn't deactivated within the next day, you're through."

She wriggled herself free and briefly tried to pry it off. The little spear-like teeth were digging into her gums, and the screams only exacerbated the pain. The device was devouring her head jaw first.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. She doesn't give up without a fight. The more you resist, the harder she bites." He deliberately rhymed with a soft, reprimanding smile.

Her hands fell defeated to her sides. The device did not loosen, but only beeped twice and whirred.

"There's a good girl," he approved. "Bad thing is, you defied me earlier, and I'm afraid I can't let you get away with that."

He pointed behind him at the heavily barricaded entryway.

She cried out—which sounded more like a panicked muffle—and shook her head fervently.

"Ya either get going or I off you and pull your kid's plug!" He roared. "Move your ass!"

Defiance was never an option. In agony, she ushered herself to the barricaded door. She stood there, wondering, fearing, dreading every thing that could lay behind it. The possibilities were endless, but either way she was investing in excruciating pain of some unthinkable kind. The real question was if these were her last hours.

His footsteps stopped just behind her, and he nuzzled his chin into the crook of her sore neck. His cakey, sweaty make-up smeared onto her neck and shoulder as smoothly as lotion. It revolted her beyond compare.

"You're taking a little walk down the Yellow Brick Road. I call it the Fun House."

The door swung opened seemingly of its own accord. She knew it was probably initiated from yet another remote he had: he probably had a remote for everything imaginable save a television set.

He removed himself from her shoulder and pushed her along. "Get goin'."

Warily she stumbled inside and, as soon as the interior was graced with her presence, the door slammed shut behind her, leaving only a fatal echo to resound throughout her surroundings.

She found herself walled up inside a small alcove of pure steel. On the window of the thick metal door, there was a blood stain. It was arctic cold; her feet had already begun to numb.

The intercom blared: _"No need to worry—yet. This is a resting chamber. The panic rooms are far more worrisome, trust me."_

She turned to the intercom and listened critically to the voice.

"_Lend your ear, maggot. The Fun House is essentially a huge labyrinth—and believe me, it's easy as hell to get lost. It's worse than a house of mirrors._ _But here's the crucial part: your son is at the end of this maze, waiting for you. And, of course, you're being timed. You can see the time in the little red box above your head."_

The clock read 6: 01 am.

"_If you fail, your son will be taken off of life support and you'll die just as quick. So think fast. You'll be delighted to hear that you have until tomorrow to find him. I'll be monitoring your progress. If you manage to survive come dawn, I'll meet you at the end. Have fun!"_

The woman had literally no time to think this through before the metal door swung open. Only darkness there. She really wasn't going to go through this maze in the dark, was she?

Alarms sounded and the resting chamber began to fill with gas. She jolted down the cold, frozen hall made of steel as arrows began to shoot out from the walls.

They were not easy to dodge. A few had torn through her skin like paper, others had grazed, and two seared niches into her flesh. The woman stumbled and fell, but not a moment later she sprung up again, sprinting to nowhere. Perdition? Death? Her son? Running was a necessity in this situation; there was no time to investigate, for her sense of wariness and self-preservation. This was about panic, about quick thinking and improvising ways out of the impossible.

The arrows were just as bountiful as the Joker's laughs._ "Mmm!" _she shrieked in alarm.

She turned the corner. The structure of Fun House was beginning to take shape. It essence, it was a maze embroidered with obscene artwork, with a dead meat smell pervading over the atmosphere. The walls were littered with mocking graffiti of clowns in the act of murder, rape, vandalism, looting, and every other vile act under the sun. The citizens of a city had the faces of pigs and cows with stupid, bewildered expressions as they were being tortured. In one scene, a pig-faced woman was sprawled out on the floor as a tall clown with long purple hair was feeding her piglets to a machine that turned them into bacon when they came out on the other end. Also among the depictions were families of cows trapped within crumbling houses, ferocious Jack-in-the-boxes, and exploding balloons filled with acid.

The ceiling grew spikes and began to descend. The hallway was closing in on itself. Her adrenaline took hold, filling her veins with fuel that compelled her to run faster than she'd ever done before and manage to speed-crawl to a doggy door before her weak, famished frame could be crushed into a stew of smashed vital organs and powdery bone.

Space was scarce, so she folded herself into a fetal position. The hallway closed off just seconds after. She squeezed her eyes shut and waited for the vent to collapse onto itself as the hallway had. Nothing happened. Was she safe? Through the plastic strips of the doggy door, the walls whirred as they began returning to their intended positions. A few minutes passed, and all was quiet and sickly serene.

It was safe. Couldn't she just wait here until tomorrow—?

No. That definitely wasn't wise. He clearly expected to find her at the end of the maze, dead or alive. Her son was waiting for her. If she stayed here in the vent until morning, the very life she suffered for would be undone.

Stillness made the anxiety too much to bear. The device barely permitted the mouth as a air outlet, so she was forced to rely heavily on her nose. It was so quiet she could hear the bomb ticking away, ever nearer to disassembling her entrails. Had he activated a timer? Was this to ensure she wouldn't waste her time wallowing in fear? That settled the matter.

She had to move.

Before she could, however, wound maintenance came to the forefront of her concerns. She needed to check if her skin had torn. Indeed, it had. But the damage was not so horrific as she had initially imagined. There were only little tears along the stitched road that encompassed the lower region of her stomach. It appeared more as if a surgeon had done a horrible job at sowing her skin after a gruesome Cesarean Section than a bomb implant. The staples held fast, but in so doing, the surrounding skin was all the frightening shades of purple, blue and red that you could imagine. Trickles of blood from the wound had ascended even so far as her hips. She stretched out the tattered white beater she was wearing and dabbed it against the wound—it wasn't very effective, having already been saturated in older blood, sweat, and more recently, vomit.

Attention was averted to her right shoulder and forearm, which had been punctured by two broken arrows. Fortuitously, the tips of the blades were not fish-hooked, so they wouldn't rip through the meat of her muscles too badly. But that in no way reconciled to the fact that it would hurt like hell.

She breathed hard in preparation. It was not wise to pull them both out at once because they were a considerable distance from each other. The act had to be quick and thoughtless. Arrows could not be pulled out little by little, like a piece of dead skin on your toe or an ingrown toenail. They were something you had to pluck swiftly and resolutely, like the hair of an eyebrow.

Her trembling left hand slowly enclosed its fingers around the shaft of the first arrow. She squeezed the shaft, nudged it slightly, and gasped to the sharp jolt of pain she received. The nudge was so subtle, yet it hurt horrendously. It gave her a taste of what she was in for when she actually dislodged both of them from her skin.

She _had_ to do this.

But when she started to pull, the sweat beginning to formulate on her forehead, the veins of her temples emerging, and her skin reddening from exertion, the arrow was making little progress, and the pain was only increasing in severity.

"Oh!! Ah, _fah...._ Moah! Ergh...!" The device's teeth clenched her gums and restricted her the intensity of her screams.

"Grahg...geh...ohh..."

"A-aa-aaah!!" And the arrow was finally freed from its fleshy prison with a juicy _splish_ sound. The woman bit her lips and squeezed her knee caps instead of her throbbing arm. The ebbing blood flowed to the next destination. The arrow at her forearm.

One arm felt just as sore as the other, as if the pain had transmigrated to both to compensate for the overwhelming sensation on her right. She squeezed the arrow, gritted her teeth, and banged her foot on the vent so she wouldn't have to hear the arrow sliding out. It hit the top of the vent with a resounding pang.

It was over.

Another fifteen minutes or so was taken to relax and physically and psychologically prepare for horrors she couldn't possibly anticipate.

The woman pushed herself down and slid into the sweeping roller coaster that was the vent. She banged against the walls at times, and even had to push herself a few times to retain inertia, but after a while she slid to a slow stop at the end. She repositioned herself head-first and pushed aside the plastic tongues stapled over the exit and peered through.

A steep fall awaited her into a vat of brown liquid and pig intestines. The carcases of pigs, cows, chickens, horses and ducks floated around, some newly killed, others in the advanced stages of decomposition. Elevating clouds of steam brought the nauseating smell to her nose and a convulsive shudder overwhelmed her.

Were these dead animals being _cooked_? Would the vat be scorching hot like the waters of a hot spring? Was it toxic?

There was no way to avoid falling in. It was the only way of escape. She couldn't land unharmed on a hard steel floor some 7 feet below. But wait: the rim of the vat. It was thick enough to allow her to walk around it, and from there she could reach the ladder!

_It could work_, she thought.

Slowly she repositioned herself again to feet first, and dangled her body over the edge. She theorized that if she kept a firm grip on the wall as she descended, her feet would land on the rim.

With the thought of her suffering son ailing her conscience, she executed her plan. She let go, but nearly filed her nails out of existence trying to cling to the wall with as little traction as she could manage. She didn't have time to scream to the feeling of her finger-pads being singed off by sliding down a flaming hot rope, owing to abruptly losing her balance. Her arms flailed futilely, trying to grasp impalpable air. _"Noooo!"_

Right in the act of falling, one of her arms caught hold of the rim. The propulsion of her frantic movements almost heaved her body into the vat. She swung back and forth, staring wide-eyed at its repulsive contents boiling into a simmer, and threw her other arm over the rim. The bomb's ticking intensified. There wasn't much time left. He had to have set something off. The ticking had never been this loud before. Was it her panic? Or were the red clocks on the ceiling not the only things that had her on a time limit?

Dangling miserably close to a seething hot death was hell on her limbs. Suddenly depending on your arms to hold the weight of your entire body was a task best left to an acrobat. The gashes in her injured arm were stretching; she had to hoist her body on the rim, and fast. The strength was leaving her arms quick. All the adrenaline and self-preservation in the world wouldn't be able to save her if she didn't use her time wisely.

Her feet could not get a firm hold on the wall and only slipped time and again; the evaporation of the simmering brown liquid was causing a coat of dewy moisture to accumulate.

"Dammit...phwease dount...ah!" She cried, when her foot lost the battle again. "Augh...no..."

This needed a change of strategy. Resolving to swing her feet to the edge of the rim instead of climbing to it, she was closer to attaining her object than before. Finally, after what seemed like a good 50 tries, her foot hooked on the rim, and with arduous effort, she was able to pull her body onto temporarily safe ground.

Unfortunately, the rim was too skinny to lay her whole body on; she tottered back and forth, dangerously close to falling in. With her hands clenching the metal with a death grip, she was able to assume a squatting position. With the aid of the wall, she stood. Now she had to pull off a circus trick that the average person could not accomplish: the precarious balancing act.

She was terrified, not knowing how to go about it. Would constantly looking down affect her performance? Should she stick one foot in front of the other, and go at a snail's pace, no matter how much time it took? The rim was so skinny that swimming through the filth at the bottom of the vat appeared more logical. Between breathing sporadically and hyperventilating, she advanced a step. Then another. Then another after that. Her balance was still feigned at best, but at least it was progress. Her stomach churned at the long circle of rim she had to tread to get to the ladder on the other side. The bomb was still ticking. Concentration was a labor for Hercules.

Another step. Another. Slowly she began to pick up her pace, growing more bold, stretching her arms out.

Beneath her, the stew was beginning to froth at the edges of the tub. A herd of giant brown bubbles formed, struggling to keep their spherical shapes. The unexpected explosion of the gas bubbles startled her out of her wits, and she trembled wayward. The shock had come too quick; she wasn't prepared at all for such a jolt.

The moment of helpless terror finally arrived. She plunged screaming into the scorching hot temperature of the putrid cesspool.

Her feet hit the sludgy meat of an animal's backbone and slammed it against the bottom of the vat. The meat broke apart into gooey strips of fat and slowly floated to the murky surface. A wave of the unholy soup splashed on her chest and bubbles exploded in her face. Brown water, feces, melted carcases and half-cooked intestines bumped into one another and bobbed around her. The woman gasped and trembled as the water burned her legs. She trudged through the corpse-ridden concoction, keeping her mouth closed and ceasing her breathing for dear life. If she inhaled this gas, she was sure to asphyxiate. Her slippery hands grasped the railing of the ladder and she drew herself upward with almost inhuman strength.

A cool blast of air blew onto her frame, and she exhaled. She could breathe again. "Magh..." she groaned as she heaved herself to the other side of the ladder and descended to the ground. She collapsed into an exhausted heap. Steam was emanating off of her legs, and several water blisters reared their bulbous heads. Being utterly soaked in unnameable grime, she could barely stand to touch herself.

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

The woman rolled over on her stomach and searched around for a red clock somewhere on the story-high ceiling. She located one at the far end of the room. From where she lay, the numbers were only blurred dots. She had to limp closer to get a good look at it. Only when she came into about three feet of it did she see it clearly.

5: 37 pm.

_Pm?_ she inwardly cried in astonishment. How was it physically possible for that much time to pass? She entered the steel resting chamber around 6 in the morning, didn't she? Was she delusional, or did the Joker purposely alter the time to get her going quicker?

From 6 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon...how many hours was that? If her sense of time was that distorted, then she better get going. Who knows that by the time she remembers to check the clock again, it could be going on 5 in the morning! And wherever her son was, he was bound to be in some kind of warped death trap that she was yet to discover.

Painfully she turned around and threw together a combination of walking, limping, and jogging to get to the end of the warehouse. It was...getting _colder_, somehow. She peered up at the walls and saw that the vents were letting in increasing amounts of freezing air. Slots on the walls let out an assembly line of suspended rib-cages and gutted cows and pigs to obviate her course to the exit. She smashed into the back of a cow and stumbled to the ground. They were moving in a thousand different directions. There was no way around them; she had to charge them head on to get past them. Where the hell was she going? The arctic temperature wore her down, making her sleepy. More than anything, she just wanted to rest. The critical importance of finding her son began to wane.

Again and again fortified slabs of meat smashed into her wounded limbs suffering just as much as the more enduring ones.

"Gah!"

"Augh!"

"Ou...mph..."

Why get up? He obviously wanted to her to die, and took every vile step to ensure it. Her cries turned to sobs.

_'Mommie...'_ he drawled over and over again.

No, no...

She'd crawl her way there, no matter what.

_'Happy birfday!'_ he cried, clapping for his own cake, '_Happy birfday, Mamma.'_

_She laughed gently. 'Adrian, it's not my birthday, it's yours...'_

The exit came within view. The door was barricaded, just as its fearsome predecessor had been.

What was she to do now? Did this mean this wasn't the way out, and she had to take another route? She looked around. The interconnecting assembly lines blocked the majority of her view, so she turned back and studied the door. It was tightly secured with an array of metal bars. A control panel was built into a wall, waiting for a correct code. How was she going to find it?

It was getting colder by the minute. Soon the temperature would drop so low she would freeze to death. Her limbs were numbing. The brown gunk in her hair was turning to frost. The floor was accumulating a thick coating of ice. As much as she wanted to act fast, her body heat was dropping at a dangerous rate. Despite terror, confusion and cold, she knew she couldn't be rash. What if, in her desperate state, she punched in the wrong code, and set off an explosive of some kind? What if she had to get it right the first time?

_Everything_ was an explosive in her mind..

The code! Where the hell was a hint when you needed one? She sifted around the crates. The ticking grew louder. It became harder to breathe. Her lungs were freezing.

The Joker chimed on the intercom: _"Someone needs a code before they __turn into a Popsicle! Hahahahaha! Don't worry: Daddy's here to help! __What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the day, and three legs in the evening?"_

A _riddle_? Four legs in the morning... Two legs in the day...

And then three in the evening? What the hell was he talking about?

With great effort she stood and dragged herself with the aid of the wall to the code pad again. The pandemonium of the assembly line had stopped, thus allowing her to think more clearly, but it was the cold that was going to have her pushing daisies in a matter of minutes...

She had to squint, but she saw that the pad had both numbers and letters on it, mimicking the order of a keyboard:

! 1; 2; # 3; $ 4; % 5; ^ 6; & 7; * 8; ( 9; ) 0; - _; + =; [arrow] backspace; q; w; e; r; t; y; u; i; o; p; a; s; d; f; g; h; j; k; l; ; ' "; z; x; c; v; b; n; m; , ; . ; ? /. [enter] [shift]

The answer to a riddle was most often a simple concept exaggerated into a mystified, abstract metaphor. She closed her eyes and slid onto the wall. Would that she had more time and a clearer mind, she could figure it out faster. She stared at her feet. Two legs. A glimmer of understanding graced her. Two legs? People walked upright on two legs. But in the day time? What did he mean by the day time? She pressed her unfeeling palms onto the floor. Four legs. How could you change the amount of feet you needed just by the time of day?

Wait. Two arms, two feet. Four 'legs'. An animal uses four legs because it can't walk on two. But to her knowledge, an animal couldn't switch to three limbs, unless one of its limbs was taken by disease or something...

No, that wasn't getting her anywhere! Back to the beginning of the riddle. What else walked on four legs?

Her son when he was an infant.

A _baby_ walks on four 'legs'. You've got to learn to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Yes!

A human is an infant in the beginning—the morning. It crawls on all fours. Then when its an adult, it walks on two legs. The day. But what gives it an extra limb in old age, the night?

...A cane!

She stood up abruptly and broke the ice off of the pad. Swiftly, she typed in 'human', and pressed enter. Denied. She groaned. Her lethargy was starting to win the battle, underpinning her movements and deadening her resolve.

'A person'. Denied. "Mmf!"

A person! A _person_ walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the day, and three in the night! Why wasn't it accepting the answer? Did she need numbers or an answer more specific than that? A woman definitely wasn't the answer. Women aren't the only ones who walk—so it _had_ to be a person, a human!

If it wasn't that, she would die never fully knowing the answer.

It became increasingly painful to move.

'A man'. Denied.

_God. I'm done._

In despair, she smashed the pad with her fist, and quickly typed in 'human'. Denied. Then she switched to 'man'.

The red turned to green. _Accepted._

Though the occasion certainly warranted it, the woman hadn't the strength to weep for joy when the bars hastily withdrew, revealing to her another hallway similar to the one she just came through. She dragged herself into the hallway and collapsed from exhaustion. The metal door locked itself only moments later. But she was safe...at least for...

The time....

being...

* * *

_Day Three, part 2: The Yellow Brick Road_

* * *

_He knew what made his daddy mad and what made his daddy happy. Dinner on the table every night made him happy. The people playing football on the TV made him happy. But Mommy complaining..._

_Well, that was worse than no dinner on the table and the off-season combined._

_'What?' He inquired at first, calmly. 'What is this? What are you talking about?' But he knew exactly what she was talking about. It was just a warning that he was going to hit her soon if she either didn't take his plate from the couch or walk away. She resolved to do neither. Instead, she said, 'You can't smoke around Adrian. He's a little boy. The smoke will—'_

_'The smoke will what?'_

_'The smoke will hurt him.' she murmured, turning her cheek his way for an expected slap._

_'He'll fucking live. He's not even that close to me.' And he stood, sizing up the competition—another warning._

_Either she must've lost her mind or had a death wish, because she replied, 'I wonder why.'_

_Hours later, Adrian picked a piece of glass off of her cheek. He quivered as his father stepped over him and his mother and slammed the front door behind him. 'Yer hurt.' The sight of blood bewildered him. 'Mommy...?'_

The cameras had been showing the same image for 10 hours: black. If there was anything he hated more than law and order, it was quiet. What was good music but shrieks and screams?

The motion sensors went on standby when he found that the blow horns failed to wake her. He considered the possibility of his beloved playmate having retired permanently, but her heaving chest convinced him otherwise. At long last, the motion sensors activated and lit up the hall. The first indication of a stir in what he considered an unforgivable lapse of time. The Joker nearly popped out of his seat. "Hey! That's right; get up you—" Then he remembered he hadn't turned the intercom on yet. "Oh yeah—" The button clicked.

"—_Rise and shine, Bo Bitch."_

"Mmm!" she started.

"_You've been idle for a good forever! I would've woken you up sooner if you could startle someone out of unconsciousness!"_

The woman's muscles were stiff from sleep. Moving was like using bones a thousand years old. She rolled onto her back, rather than picking herself off the ground as she intended to do. Ten hours had given him too many provocations for a hundred fiery deaths, but her body refused to work with her. The neurons fired, saying 'get up', but her body was a disobedient vessel.

'I'm awake! I'm awake! Please!' she fervently desired to shout.

The Joker, of course, could care less, and displayed his ire with gusto._ "Look alive! It's three in the morning! You better work twice as hard to make up for those hours of boredom I had to suffer through. Be grateful I didn't kill you in your sleep. Get your saggy ass through this maze in real time, before I give your son an early birthday present!"_

Trembling, she clawed her way to composure by aid of the wall, but in disagreement it grew spikes that punctured her hand. The pain lit a fuse in her and the blood started to flow to where it was supposed to. This place was heating up. She turned around to see the vents distributing lethal gas. So she ran, wondering how she had survived thus far.

"Don't run through there blindly, you nut," he spat to himself as he swiveled in the chair, "Look at the passage ways."

And indeed she met them. There were four different ways out. The gas was advancing and the spikes were growing in size. She had to choose. Wasn't there any way she could judge their merit? The hallways were all dark, awaiting her presence with their motion sensors. She searched sporadically. _"Komon, Kommmauhhn!"_

Then she noticed that there were markings all over the floor. But not just arbitrary, meaningless markings.

All the possible trails were marked in suits.

Red diamonds. Green spades. Yellow clovers. Purple hearts. And the monarchy followed them. A purple queen of hearts here, a red jack there. It indicated her path.

But which one was the right one?

"_You're taking a little walk..."_

Red diamonds? The bricks? Green spades. The toxin being fed into the room was green. Didn't seem like a promising color. Who knows but she would land up in a gas chamber as a result? Purple hearts. His purple jacket... No, that monster. That horrible color.

Yellow clovers. Clovers. 'The luck of the Irish.' Clovers. Luck.

The_ Yellow_ Brick Road.

She invested dwindling, last minute faith in this assertion. A smudged, yellow 1 card pointed to the 2nd entry way. The order of the suits guided. She dove in and the door trapped her in. The motion sensors gave her light and activated death traps. Saws whirred in the walls and closed in on her; hooks dangled precariously from the ceiling; slippery corpses of lambs turned to slush under her feet. Yellow two down the line. Yellow three. The pattern interrupted. Green spades abound, purple three. Where was four?

Dammit. She didn't know where she was. What if this happened the precise moment she had to make an ultimate decision?

Hah! Yellow four! Yellow five! Yellow _six_!

Seven... Eight... Nine...

Too many reds, too many blues, too many clubs. A headache emerged.

Ten. Jack. The pattern dissolved. What happened?

Another four hallways to choose from. Where, where, where....

A yellow queen. Route 3. The door closed.

All she had left to discern among the colorful array of poker cards were the King and the Ace. She was that close either to perdition or to her son.

She found the King in a confluence of 9's, 10's, and Queens. They were all dead ends. If she were following the purple suit, it would lead her to this freezer room, but she'd have to wait and freeze to death—if she really felt that the Joker would meet her here with her son in tow. She shook her head and passed on. Fat chance.

The final yellow Ace led her down a narrow hallway. It was _definite_. Quiet. No more steel, no graffiti. No traps. No gas. Just cold marble floor and arid air. She was close. The entryway was covered by tattered blinds.

She brushed them aside and entered the room.

A wooden board bore a sinister message in blood red spray paint:

YOU HAVE REACHED ENLIGHTENMENT.

When she looked down, it was more appalling than anything else.

Situated in the hollowed out recess of a gargantuan, golden statue of Buddha, was her grand prize.

It was not her son.

No, it was a child much older than Adrian.

And the child wasn't even a boy.

It was the blond girl from the day care center. The one who told her to pay attention...

The girl was stripped naked, blond hair black with ash, skin scorched to hell, crippled and covered head to toe in duct tape—wrapped like a mummy before the burial. She was positioned as a meditating monk.

The girl's eyes were sowed shut, as was the woman's mouth held closed by the bomb mask she wore. Verbal communication was henceforth eliminated between both victims. The girl screamed and cried; the woman muffled indecipherable gibberish.

At the feet of the Buddha the final card manifested itself. The Joker screeching to the sky.

_'Will the real Batman please stand up?'_

There was no one sitting at the computer screens.

_Whirrrrr...._

Mechanical razors rose from hundreds of slots on the ground, revving as a warning. The woman's eyes widened in disbelief and horror. She grabbed the child from the belly of the Buddha and darted around it, through another cold, dimly lit hallway. The floor razors followed in close pursuit. A few skewered their way through the walls, one managing to slash into one of her shoulders.

The only way of escape was the metal pipe at the end of the maze. With the floor razors a hair-breadth away from decapitating her feet, she held the girl tight to her chest and flung herself down the pipe. Not to be defeated, one of the razors sliced its path into the pipe and cut it in half almost as fast as they were falling. Were these vicious implements possessed? How could a razor follow her down the pipe and pursue them like prey?

Just as they were about to elude the dreadfully close weapon, the razor slashed through the girl's back and whizzed out the other end. They violently flew out of the pipe and slid to a chafing stop in a resting chamber.

Blood gushed out of ripped flesh in an unstoppable river. The woman's heart beat in her ears. She tore her white beater in half and wrapped it around the girl's abdomen. The girl's fingers helplessly clawed at her, pleading in blood-filled sobs. She could no longer speak.

"Ggh....hhahh..." was all she could get out.

The girl trembled, and fell still.

The razor sliced its way down the hall, past the Joker's feet. He glimpsed at it briefly and turned back at the woman to smile. He pressed a button on his remote, and her mask disengaged its timer and dropped off her jaw. "Now you can holler all ya want," he said.

The woman was in unbearable hysterics by the time he approached; she cradled the dead girl in her arms, completely unwilling to let go, wallowing in the child's dark, ebbing pool.

She hadn't even took notice of his presence when he made it known by pushing her face into the blood as if she were a dog who peed on the carpet and tearing the small corpse from her arms.

"Ghrrreahh...flff...aa—aaahhh!!!" She squirmed until he released his grip on her head, cackling up a storm.

"Well look at that! You're worse than a fish out of water! Look at you, flappin' around!"

He dragged her away with brute force, but she continued to writhe and shriek for the girl. He whistled. Not a few seconds later, a herd of hyenas trotted out, eyes sowed shut, claws bared, their teeth meat-ready...

"I had Purina," he murmured, "But I guess she'll do."

It was 4: 25. That left almost 2 hours to spare. "Not bad for you, Bo," he nodded. "But too bad for Little Miss Muffet! _Hyaaahahahahah_!"

The door of the resting chamber closed just as the beasts began nibbling on the child's pale fingers.


End file.
